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Human Rights

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Do human rights protect vegans and other forms of boycott? Art.18 perhaps? (fedia.io)
submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I would like to know if vegans have any protection for their practice under human rights laws. Veganism is essentially a boycott against all industries that exploit non-human animals. And more broadly, are boycotts of any kind protected?

These laws could potentially be relevant:

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Article 1

  1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

Self-determination seems quite vague and would seem to imply autonomy in general. Does that imply that someone can boycott whatever they want, like fossil fuels, credit cards, cars, meat, Internet, etc?

I also wonder about the language effect of using “peoples” in that wording. It would seem to imply that individuals do not get self-determination, but a people (a group of people) have that right. Can anyone clarify?

UDHR

Article 18:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Article 18

  1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.
  2. No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.
  3. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

Vegan is not religion but this seems to say you can manifest a belief and practice it. So then I wonder about (for example) a vegan in prison. Can a vegan prisoner insist on a plant-based diet?

I wonder to what extent ¶3 can reduce these rights. To say it’s okay to limit ¶1 rights in pursuit of “public order” is quite broad. Any action by a gov to repress ¶1 would be argued to be in the interest of “public order”.

If an Amish person or luddite were to say “fuck the Internet -- I’m done with CAPTCHAs, tracking and surveillance, forced use of email…etc“, and develop beliefs against Internet and thus unplug from it, couldn’t the gov argue that going analog compromises “public order” (as governments increasingly impose the use of Internet on people)?

(edit) A big fuck you to the cowardice assholes silently downvoting this thread for asking questions. Contempt for people knowing their rights is despicable.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The answer is, in prison, the hospital, etc. you can get vegetarian or vegan meals. And to address the last comment, we just want you to be vegan and shut the fuck up about it, most people just don't care to have idealogy of any kind shoved down our throats.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I am being dragged into court over a boycott. Opposition to my boycott is being shoved down my throat, so your uncivil reponse not only fails to answer the questions and neglects to give insight into human rights law and interpretation, it’s not helpful in terms of how human rights law can be applied to defend boycotts. It’s worse than unhelpful because threadcrap is just garbage that assaults the discussion and blocks people from knowing their rights.

BTW, many US states have a prohibition on boycotting Israel, and Texas enforces it. So the idea that everyone happily gets to practice boycotts free from oppression is delusional. I already knew that some prisons offer vegan options, but that mere fact does not reveal the legal basis for that option.

[–] my_hat_stinks 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If you're talking about a court case the only person you should be getting advice from is your lawyer. We don't know who you are, we don't know where you are, we don't know what your case is about, and chances are the majority of people here aren't lawyers. It's also very unlikely you're "being dragged into court over a boycott" so I'm certain there's more to the story you're not telling us. Don't bother filling us in though, I'm sure if you let your lawyer know about this post they'd tell you to take it down anyway.

As a general rule of thumb you can't be forced to purchase a product or service if you haven't made a binding agreement to do so, but we can't tell you if or how that applies to your case. Very little of what anyone says here will be useful to you.

Speak to your lawyer.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

I am not asking for legal advice¹. I am asking how the human rights text I have quoted can reasonably be interpretted -- and in fact what is the common interpretation.

Lawyers have specific disciplines. At this point with so little critical thinking (and thinking in general in this thread) it’s unclear if a human rights lawyer is even appropriate for my situation. Whether I can even obtain a lawyer is an entirely different mess -- totally irrelevant to the thread. But due to those irrelevant circumstances I believe I will be forced to defend myself (btw, it is a human right that someone can defend themself pro se.. fyi). In which case it is extra important for me to know my rights.

This hostility in here to people knowing their rights is something else. It’s far from the liberal community I was expecting to find here. Where are the people who actually endorse human rights, endorse the knowledge of those rights, and the exercise thereof? Where are the thinkers? The profs, and academics?

Folks -- please read the sidebar -- all of it:

!humanrights is a safe place to discuss the topic of human rights, through the lens of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. …

  • Treat everyone with dignity. …

¹ I only brought up the legal case because to fend off the anti-intellectual speech-chilling asshat who managed to break every rule in the sidebar at once. The legal case is irrelevant to the thread’s thesis of knowing our rights -- and was intentionally withheld from the OP.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Freedom of expression is protected, veganism is covered under that. Boycotts are also covered.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That sounds bizarre because boycotting produces no expression whatsoever. Boycotting is simply the absence of an action which leaves no trace of expression, written, verbal, or as art. Can you elaborate?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I phrased what I meant pretty poorly, I mean to say that if it were to be a thing that could be banned, it would qualify as expression in that It is a form of peaceful protest. Realistically, you can't ban boycotts because you can't make people buy things and that is what makes it something you're allowed to do, but I wanted to discuss it the way the post seemed to be.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I can’t quite grasp much of what you’re saying but I can respond to this:

Realistically, you can't ban boycotts because you can't make people buy things

Boycotting is no longer limited to purchases because data has value. So boycotting also means to refuse to share your profitable data with the entity who you boycott. Whether the boycott is exercised by refusing to purchase or refusing to share data, there are various situations where people’s boycotts can be suppressed:

  • An arabic teacher in Texas was forced to sign an agreement to not boycott Israel. She refused to sign and so the school district refused to renew her teaching contract. (that actually happened)
  • An obligatory government procedure requires either sending an email to the gov office or supplying an email address to them to receive email from them. The gov office uses Microsoft (a notorious surveillance advertiser who abuses data every opportunity). There are hundreds of reasons to boycott Microsoft. Complying with the gov obligation requires you to participate in Microsoft gaining profitable data from your transaction. OTOH refusing to comply on the basis of boycotting Microsoft leads to whatever action the gov takes for non-compliance with their procedure.
  • A creditor only accepts Paypal payments toward a debt. If the debtor is not legally entitled to pay by other means in the country at hand (or the contract supersedes), the creditor would sue a debtor who boycotts Paypal for non-payment. This could happen if both agree to use Paypal, but then the debtor later gets booted by Paypal (yes, paypal has a reputation for booting customers and even keeping their money). The customer would be reasonable to boycott Paypal in such event, but the boycott would be impeded by their obligation to pay the creditor.
  • (the OP example) a vegan is incarcerated in a prison that has no vegan food. It’s perhaps a messy example, but a vegan could refuse the animal products. When they reach a bad condition, some human rights issues would eventually be triggered since they have a right to live. Force feeding aside, ideally they should have a legal basis to demand vegan food simply from the start. It’s probably not a realistic example in most of the developed world but nonetheless indicates how a boycott can be impeded.
  • Someone who boycotts Google might be forced to use an app exclusive for Google customers. That force can arise out of various circumstances including government mandates as govs increasingly assume everyone has a smartphone. It’s very common for apps to be exclusively obtainable from Google or Apple’s websites, and increasingly common that apps are unavoidable. Google profits from the Playstore, as does Apple from their store. There is a community for capturing some of these situations. See the healthcare thread in particular.
  • Someone who boycotts non-free software might be forced to use a government website that’s actually a JavaScript app, non-free software.
  • A consumer who boycotts Google might be forced to solve a Google reCAPTCHA (from which Google profits) in the course of fulfilling an obligation to use a shitty website. E.g. the water company might require you to supply your meter reading on their website. You might agree after seeing no problem with the website. Then a couple years later the water company decides to make solving a Google reCAPTCHA a precondition to entering the meter reading. Since the agreement does not say they will /not/ do this, you are contractually obligated to solve Google’s CAPTCHA and help Google profit from your labor (because telling Google where the crosswalks are adds value to their profitable maps).
  • A consumer sensible enough to boycott Twitter will be unable to microblog to most (if not all) of their gov reps, which of course has some interplay with free expression rights. If the gov rep were on a gov-administered Mastodon host, boycotts would be respected. Constituents could boycott the shitty corps without sacrificing the option to microblog to their rep.

I could go on but I think this sufficiently shows that there are plenty of situations where people are increasingly disempowered to boycott. Pointing to the free expression article of the UDHR would be useless in these scenarios.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A boycott is by definition choosing not to partake in a transaction so as to show your dissatisfaction financially, any action that doesn't fit the definition of a boycott is not one. You cannot force somebody to partake in a transaction, therefore (though you can pass laws trying to) it is practically impossible to ban a boycott.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A boycott is by definition choosing not to partake in a transaction ~~so as to show your dissatisfaction financially~~, any action that doesn't fit the definition of a boycott is not one.

There is no “showing your dissatisfaction” nonsense here. A boycott can absolutely be silent. You’re under the common misconception that boycotts are necessarily organised by many people with a list of demands. A single person can -- on their own initiative -- decide to boycott a company as just one person. I did not buy the Unilever bar of soap because I boycott Unilever. Yet Unilever does not get the slightest expression or signal from me to “show” dissatisfaction. I may be the only person boycotting them. Wholly undetectable. I might make some noise about it, optionally, but my boycott does not cease to be a boycott for not showing dissatisfaction.

Intent is nothing from a utilitarian standpoint. Someone or a small group might think or hope their boycott inherently signals dissatisfaction. Yet it likely fails in that regard despite having the intent that your definition introduces.

A boycott is consumers refusing to feed a bad actor. They may or may not show contempt. I boycott hundreds of corporations and I never send them my list of demands. That’s optional. Different people partake in boycotts different ways. Vegans often do not voice contempt for their adversary. But it’s a boycott against animal abusers nonetheless. The only way the meat industry could satisfy the demands of the vocal vegans would be to wholly cease their activity.. their existence.

I boycott Micorosoft and Amazon for hundreds of reasons. There is absolutely no hope of those companies changing enough to redeem themselves enough for me to back off my boycott. They cannot be salvaged. I am boycotting them until I die.

You cannot force somebody to partake in a transaction,

How could you possibly not have seen all the examples I gave of people being forced to partake in a transaction? Some are hypothetical but doesn’t matter. I count 8. In every single one of those cases the consumer could (if they wanted) ensure that their dissatisfaction is registered which would then adapt the example for your definition of boycott.

If we assume you are not swayed about the meaning of the word, so what? My questions in the OP are formed using my own interpretation of the word boycott. If necessary, you could mentally find and replace “boycott” with “foo”. My questions still stand.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I never said a boycott required an organization you need to learn to read. Words don't mean different things just because you are upset. A boycott is any person and/or group not transacting with some entity (usually a company) so as to show their dissatisfaction. This does not necessarily need to involve a purchase, but the word's definition didn't change just because you got upset about something. In case you still don't know the definition, here it is

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

you need to learn to read.

Try reading your own source. Look for “usually” in your cited definition. If you replace “usually” with “always” it would get you closer to the definition you’re attempting to apply in your claims. At least it’s more clear why you originally thought expression rights would matter.

I never said a boycott required an organization

Yet you just indicated you are standing behind Webster’s definition, which (incorrectly) claims that a boycott is necessarily “concerted”. An “organised” boycott is “concerted”. Working in concert.

A dictionary’s 2-liner gives a very rudimentary understanding of the practice. It’s good for someone starting from zero, but you should really read the history and learn a bit about the concept instead of trying to think like a robot. Lookup Charles C. Boycott to learn the origins. A dictionary is really a shitty source for gaining in-depth insight. Anyone can find a dictionary that supports different meanings. Then what? A battle of dictionaries.. Webster vs. Random House? A prof would be embarrassed to refer to a dictionary. The problem with Webster is that it attempts to capture the general concept in 2 lines of text but in an effort to capture the typical practice it yields something inaccurately narrow. They made a trade-off. Webster was right to say it /usually/ manifests as an expression, but a boycott does not cease to be a boycott in the absence of a concerted effort of multiple actors. Indeed that is also usually the case but not always. And you’re hoping a 2 line blurb will cover all situations. It’s a non-starter because those of us who live by the boycott as a lifestyle could not possibly convey expression across the board. If I were to introduce expression to my lifestyle of boycotting ~1000+ brands for every one of them, it would be unsurmountable. I would have to cut back on the quantity of boycotts by 2 orders of magnitude.