英国新闻听力 贸易和人权如何保持平衡（在线收听）

At a recent hearing of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee a lively exchange occurred on the place of Human Rights in Foreign Policy considerations. The Committee heard that while Human Rights were still an integral part of the FCO’s work, they were no longer one of the top priorities. Trade was now further up the list.

Integrating human rights into foreign policy poses difficult dilemmas for many western governments. Getting the balance right all the time can be challenging. The late Robin Cook, spoke of an ethical foreign policy. Few countries now speak of such a policy, for fear of being called out on it. But in my experience having served overseas as a diplomat, the ethical dimension remains strong, albeit implicitly so.

Diplomacy is about building and maintaining relationships with individuals, groups and states – and sometimes with those who don’t share common values. Diplomacy navigates and influences difference. As with human relationships, if one desires a positive change in the other then engagement is one way of achieving that through building up contact and hopefully trust and confidence. In extreme cases of difference, diplomats might ask at what stage you can speak to terrorists? Or when can you deal with dictatorships and how? Earlier generations faced similar values dilemmas when dealing with the USSR and Warsaw Pact.

Political Scientists disagree on whether the market comes before the democracy or vice versa. That feeds into the policy dilemma on human rights and trade.

Adopting too absolutist an approach on trade or human rights is likely to be ineffective. Giving trade a stronger priority over human rights in foreign policy might actually hasten the day when they are more sustainably embedded, or it might simply help to sustain the injustice. As with our human actions, all depends on the purity of motive underpinning the policy choice and the standards by which we discern that.

A self-interested utilitarian focus on trade alone is unlikely to bring positive change for either society. Clive of India and the East India Company is a history not to be repeated. But equally, a too purist approach to achieving human rights and democracy risks putting impossible expectations on developing countries, in particular the weaker ones, to achieve standards that took us centuries to deliver.

Trade and Human Rights are not mutually exclusive; in the right circumstances one can lead to the other. When Jesus spoke about being as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves, he illustrated the balance that sometimes has to be struck. Foreign relations, like human relationships, ask us to discern the purity of our choices and subsequent actions. For people of faith, we believe that one day we will have to account for them.

在议会外事委员会最近一次会议上，人们就人权在考虑外交政策时的地位进行了现场交流。该委员会获悉人权仍然是外事委员会工作不可缺少的一部分，却不再是要务。贸易问题现在高居榜首。

将人权融入外交政策给许多西方政府带来了困境。任何时候都保持平衡非常具有挑战性。已故的罗宾·库克曾经说到民族外交政策。现在已经很少有国家提及这样的政策，担心因为这个问题被传唤。但是根据我在海外担任外交官的经验，伦理维度仍然非常强烈，尽管非常隐晦。

外交指的是在个人，组织和国家之间建立并维持关系——有时这些对象之间价值观并不相同。外交手段可以引导并影响这些分歧。就像人类关系一样，如果一人希望另外一人做出积极的改变，达到这一目标的方法就是通过建立联系，信任和信心，从而签订契约。在存在分歧的极端例子中，外交官或许会问在那一阶段你可以和恐怖分子对话？或者你何时可以处理独裁问题，以何种方式？此前的几代人达成苏联和华沙公约时也面临类似的价值观困境。

关于市场优先于民主制度，还是相反，政治科学家的意见并不相同。关于人权和贸易的政策困境也是如此。

对贸易或人权采取过于专制的方法可能没有效果。在外交政策中给予贸易优先于人权的地位或许会加速这一天的到来——使它们更加根深蒂固，或者简单地导致不公平。至于人类行动，一切都取决于巩固政策选择的动机的纯正性，以及我们理解这些政策的标准。

以自我利益为主，单单注重贸易的功利主义者不可能给任何社会带来积极的改变。印度和东印度克莱夫公司的历史不应该再重演。但是同样地，单纯追求人权和民主的过于纯化论者也会给发展中国家带来不切实际的期望，尤其是比较弱小的国家，相当于让他们执行我们花费了几个世纪才达到的标准。

贸易和人权不是互相排斥的，在正确的条件下，两者是相辅相成的。耶稣说，人类像蛇一样狡猾，像鸽子一样纯洁，他阐述的是人类有时必须遵守的平衡。外交关系就像人类关系一样，要求我们辨别我们的选择和随后的行动的纯正性。对于有信仰的人来说，我们相信我们总有一天能够为他们负责。