INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS NETWORK of ACADEMIES AND SCHOLARLY SOCIETIES
Proceedings
Symposium and Fifth Biennial Meeting
Paris, May 10–11, 2001
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C. www.nap.edu
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
500 Fifth Street, N.W.Washington, DC20001
This document was made possible through the use of general operating funds provided to the committee by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur Foundation, the John Merck Fund, the Scherman Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine.
For information, contact the Network secretariat:
International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies
c/o Committee on Human Rights, The National Academies
500 Fifth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
Tel: 202–334–3043
Fax: 202–334–2225
Email: chr@nas.edu
http://www.nationalacademies.org/international/ (Committee on Human Rights)
Copyright 2003 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
In Memory of Max Perutz
This report is dedicated to the memory of one of the Network’s founding members, Professor Max F.Perutz, who died on February 6, 2002. He was 87 years old.
Max was a world-renowned scientist who, in 1962, along with John C.Kendrew, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for their studies of the structures of globular proteins.” In 1993 Max became one of the founding members, along with François Jacob, Pieter van Dijk, and Torsten Wiesel, of the International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies. The Network’s files contain copies of dozens of letters from Max, all meticulously written in his own hand. He wrote to imprisoned colleagues and their families, encouraging them to stay strong. He wrote to heads of state and government ministers, requesting their humanitarian interventions for prisoners of conscience. And he wrote to the Network’s secretariat to raise human rights issues, to comment on the direction of its work, and, sometimes, to point out a grammatical error or improper punctuation. He even wrote to apologize for not being able to do more than he was already doing—which was a considerable amount.
In addition to a brilliant mind and creative spirit, Max had a passionate and compassionate soul as well as a single-minded determination to promote and protect human rights. Embracing life with joy and humor, he took an interest in and cared deeply about people everywhere and what happened to them, reaching out to those in need of help and support. He was outraged by injustice and appalled by brutality. Pulling no punches, he fought the good fight for the promotion and protection of human rights with energy and fervor to the very end of his life. We can best honor Max’s memory by picking up where he left off and continuing his struggle for justice, equality, and human rights.
The International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies
A Description
The International Human Rights Network, created in 1993, consists of national academies and scholarly societies around the world that desire to work together to address serious science and human rights issues of mutual concern.
The primary objective of the Network and the motivating factor in its creation is to use the influence and prestige of its members, by working in a collaborative manner, to actively defend the rights of colleagues— scientists, medical professionals, engineers, and scholars—who are unjustly imprisoned or persecuted for nonviolently expressing their opinions. The Network’s appeals are based on the standards set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Network members subscribe to the belief that, because their academies and scholarly societies are held in high esteem and their dignity, integrity, and objectivity are widely recognized, their interventions can be an effective and influential tool in advancing respect for human rights. The Network strives to provide its member academies with protection and moral support when their independence is threatened, their members are subjected to repression, or their scholarly work is undermined for political reasons. Through the exchange of human rights related ideas, information, and experiences, the Network encourages collaboration and communication among academies and advances understanding of human rights issues that relate to science, technology, and health.
The Network supports human rights consciousness-raising, education, and institutional commitment to human rights work among counterpart academies and scholarly societies worldwide. More than a dozen member academies now work collaboratively in submitting petitions on behalf of unjustly imprisoned colleagues to the UNESCO Committee on Conventions and Recommendations. The Network also sends observers to the trials of colleagues such as those of Alexandr Nikitin in Russia and Saad Eddin Ibrahim in Egypt.
While the Network’s Executive Committee occasionally makes public statements about particularly grave situations of relevance to the Network’s charge and encourages Network members to do the same, all member institutions of the Network have full autonomy and act at their own discretion. They are strongly encouraged to create human rights committees and to urge their academies and their members to intervene on cases and issues brought to their attention by the Network secretariat
through regular Action Alerts sent by e-mail and posted on a private Network Web site. Members are also encouraged to refer potentially relevant cases and human rights issues to the Network secretariat for investigation and possible action and to inform the secretariat of particular situations that Network members should be made aware of or in which its Executive Committee may want to intervene in a formal manner. It is possible that, as relations among members of the Network are strengthened and mutual concerns more widely identified, the Network will take action as a group with one voice on selected issues.
The Network receives financial support from the US National Academies as well as grants from private foundations and gifts from generous individuals. It does not solicit or accept funds from any government or government agency. It needs and will gratefully accept donations from private donors. Every two years a different member academy hosts a symposium and workshop for the Network. Hosts to date have been the National Academies (1993), the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (1995), the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (1997), the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, Letters, and Antiquities (1999), and the Académie des Sciences (2001). The meeting in 2003 will be hosted by the Council of Swiss Scientific Academies and in 2005 by the Royal Society of London.
The Committee on Human Rights of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine serves as secretariat for the Network.
With Gratitiude
We are indebted to the Institut de France, the Fondation “Louis D.,” the Fondation Hugo, the Ministére de la Culture et de la Communication, the Délégation générale à la langue française, the Académie des Sciences, the John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur Foundation, the New Land Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, and the National Academies (USA), whose financial contributions made the Network meeting and the publication of these proceedings possible. The funds also enabled us to support the travel to our meeting of the symposium speakers and a number of participants from academies experiencing financial difficulties. We sincerely thank these organizations for their support, both moral and financial, of the Network and irs activites.
We also express our profound appreciation to François Jacob for organizing and graciously hosting this event; to Claude Cohen-Tannoudji for generously contributing his time and ideas; to Macha Sebrien for her superb assistance to the Network’s secretariat in overseeing so many programmatic aspects of the meeting—before, during, and after; and to Fabienne Bonfils for cheerfully and reliably handling the myriad administrative tasks associated with the event.
International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies
Executive Committee (See Appendix H for biographies)
François Jacob*
France
United Kingdom
John Polanyi
Canada
Pieter van Dijk*
The Netherlands
Edoardo Vesentini
Italy
Torsten Wiesel*
United States of America
Executive Director
Carol Corillon
Participants and Academies Represented
Albania—Albanian Academy of Sciences
Luan Omari
Armenia—National Academy of Sciences of Armenia
Georg Brutian
Australia—Australian Academy of Sciences
Derek Denton
Austria—Austrian Academy of Sciences
Sonja Puntscher-Riekmann
Belgium—The Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts
Marcel Storme
Belgium—Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and the Arts
René Thomas
Bosnia and Herzegovina—Academy of Sciences and Arts
Hanifa Kapidzic-Osmanagic
Brazil—Brazilian Academy of Sciences
Roberto Salmeron
Cameroon—Cameroon Academy of Sciences
Maurice Tchuenté
Canada—Royal Society of Canada
Marc Angenot
Chile—Academy of Sciences of Chile
Tito Ureta
Colombia—Colombian Academy of Science
Luis Eduardo Mora-Osejo
Croatia—Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Ivo Patovan
Czech Republic—Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Jiri Niederle
Denmark—Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
Ida Nicolaisen
France—French Academy of Sciences
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
François Jacob
Yves Quéré
Gérard Toulouse