Foreign Policy on Human Rights Vol. 4 : Its Influence on Indonesia under Soeharto

Part of the School of Human Rights Research series. Many states now feel an obligation not only to respect human rights themselves, but also to pursue human rights issues in their relations with other states. Human rights are very much on the international political agenda. Little is known, however, about how much one state can influence another state to improve itts human rights record, and which factors make such influence-attempts more or less effective. Pronouncements and predictions concerning the influence of human rights policy are often based on the speaker's outlook on life, idealistic or cynical, optimist or pessimist, rather than on research. This study assesses how successful the human rights policy of a number of western states has been in influencing the Indonesian government's behaviour in the field of human rights over a period of hnearly twenty-five years. Secondly, it examines which factors contributed to or detracted from this influence. Two types of factors and explored: factors concerning the type of policy pursued and factors concerning the internal situation in the target state, Indonesia. The influence process is examined in detail in four case studies: the release of tens of thousands of political prisoners held in arbitrary detenton in the 1970s, the executions of political prisoners in the late 1980s, the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre in East Timor and its aftermath, and the violation of labour rights between 1987 and 1994.Glasius, Marlies is the author of 'Foreign Policy on Human Rights Vol. 4 : Its Influence on Indonesia under Soeharto', published 1999 under ISBN 9789050950893 and ISBN 9050950892.