Globalization's impact on Human Rights a "Mixed Blessing" by United Nations University. 2:49pm 11th Dec, 2003   December 10, 2003. (Published by UN Wire)    Globalization has been a "mixed blessing" for human rights worldwide, weakening the ability of national governments to protect their citizens from economic exploitation but also spurring collective responses to international humanitarian crises, according to a report released today by the U.N. University.    The Globalization of Human Rights, issued to mark International Human Rights Day, warns that global economic forces have frustrated attempts by many nations to improve the social and economic rights of their populace.  According to the report, international law has been slow to take action against factors that undermine social and economic development, such as the mobility of industry, labor and capital, disparities in the costs of labor and the dependency of countries on Western technologies and capital.    Henry Schue, a researcher at Oxford University and a contributor to the report, said that globalization has aggravated inequality worldwide. "Globalization has done more for the rich and powerful because it was designed, by the rich and powerful, to do precisely this," he said.    But globalization has also had a positive impact, the report argues, creating a strengthened sense of community that has led nations to more actively address human rights and other problems outside their national borders.  The U.N. Security Council, for instance, has sanctioned military intervention on humanitarian grounds.    Such intervention demonstrates "a recognition that states' rights are not all that matter," says the study.  "In responding to the conflicts in ways that differed from the status quo, the Security Council, beyond trying to address the immediate demands generated by war, also helped shape and alter the future of the international system in ways more sensitive to individual rights."    Despite the growing trend toward interventionism on humanitarian grounds, contributors to the report said that states have a long way to go in order to meet the responsibilities brought by globalization.    "Global interdependence and the recognition of a shared humanity have magnified moral responsibilities without enhancing the commitment or building the international institutions that could fulfill those responsibilities," said co-editor Michael Doyle, of Columbia University.
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