Dear Fellow students:

The JLSA would like to take this opportunity to bring to your attention an issue regarding this years commencement speaker, Ms. Mary Robinson.  As UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Robinson has an impressive record as an human rights advocate.  As McGill Principal Heather Monroe-Blum and Dean Nicholas Kasirer wrote in a letter defending McGills decision to award an honourary degree to Ms. Robinson, which appeared in the Gazette, May 7, 2004:  She [Ms. Robinson] has argued landmark cases before the European Court of Human Rights as well as in Irish courts and at the European Court of Justice in Luxemburg.  As president of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, she was recognized as a nonsectarian presence in a country dominated by a history of strife. She served from 1997 to 2002 as United Nations high commissioner for human rights. 

However, we and some of this years graduates believe that her lack of leadership at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa (August-September, 2001) makes her a poor choice as commencement speaker.   In brief, Ms. Robinson stood by while pro-Palestinian groups hijacked the Conference and turned it into one of the worst displays of anti-Semitism in recent history.  The Iranian government, host of the Asia groups preparatory conference in Tehran, refused to issue visas to Israeli citizens and to representatives of Jewish NGOs.  This is contrary to standard practice among states hosting UN Conferences, which is to issue visas to any accredited party from a UN member state.  Ms. Robinson rejected the Simon Weisenthal Centers request to move the Conference to another host state that would not discriminate against Jews.  Eventually, Ms. Robinson did convince Iran to issue visas to non-Israeli representatives of Jewish NGOs.  However, by that time, it was too late for those groups to participate.  The result of that Conference was a document rife with anti-Semitism.  Ms. Robinson, however, characterized the Conference as a productive dialogue between civilizations (Tom Lantos, The Durban Debacle An Insiders View of the World Racism Conference at Durban, Fletcher Forum 26:1, 2002 1 at 6 online: http://www.house.gov/international_relations/democratic/Durban_Debacle.pdf).  At the final preparatory conference in Geneva and at Durban itself, hard line Arab and Muslim governments would go to all lengths to demonize Israel at the expense of focusing on the issues at hand.  Mary Robinson did nothing to get the Conference back on track.  For example, at Geneva, the US was close to brokering a deal, whereby the final document would mention the conflict in the Middle East, but all other anti-Israel and anti-Semitic language would be deleted.  Instead of advocating for the compromise position, Ms. Robinson legitimized the hard line Arab and Muslim position by making a speech equating the Holocaust and anti-Semitism with Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.   

Although at Durban, she ultimately rejected the NGO forum's declaration because of its extreme anti-Israel and anti-Semitic language, we and some of this years graduates believe that she could have done more during the conference to reign in the not only anti-Israel, but anti-Semitic atmosphere that engulfed Durban.   For example, the Arab Lawyers League, an accredited NGO, distributed cartoons depicting hook nosed Jews and some groups sold t-shirts displaying the message that if Hitler had won there would be no Israel today.  By not reigning in the anti-Semitic atmosphere and by allowing the vilification of Israel to proceed, Ms. Robinson lent legitimacy to the erroneous idea that Israel is the world's primary violator of human rights conventions.   Her failure is best stated by US Congressman Tom Lantos, who was present at Durban.  He writes: Mary Robinsons lack of leadership was a major contributing factor to the debacle in Durban.  Her yearning to have a dialogue among civilizations blinded her to the reality that the noble goals of her conference had been usurped by some of the worlds least tolerant and most repressive states, wielding human rights claims as a weapon in a political dispute(at 19).  Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch condemned the Durban Conference (See e.g.: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engIOR410212001?OpenDocument&of=THEMES%5CRACISM, http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/africa/09/02/durban.racism/ ).   However, in her closing remarks, Robinson labeled the Durban Conference a success (Gil Troy, Degree of dishounour at McGill: Giving an honourary doctorate to Mary Robinson is a mistake, The Gazette, May 2, 2004).

To be clear, we are not alleging that Mary Robinson is an anti-Semite.  Rather, we and some of this years graduates believe that her role as Chairperson and chief architect of the World Conference Against Racism makes her ultimately responsible for its failings.   Today, many repressive regimes use the cloak of alleged Israeli violations of human rights conventions to shift the focus away from their own human rights abuses.  For example, at Durban, the North African slave trade was completely ignored.  The insistence by the hard line Arab and Muslim states that the Conference focus on the Middle East conflict derailed a compromise on the issue of colonialism and the slave trade in the Western world (for a good overview of Durbans failings see Lantos). 

Just because other prestigious universities have granted honourary degrees to Ms. Robinson, does not mean that McGill has to follow.  As a leader in the field of human rights, we believe that the McGill Faculty of Law should demonstrate leadership and take a stand against the perversion of the human rights agenda for political ends.  A commencement speaker should be someone with whom all students can feel comfortable.  Mary Robinson is not such a person.