General Background : Taiwan' Human Rights Isolation

     Taiwan was under a one-party dictatorship and martial law for almost half a century. During this period, any talk of human rights was a taboo, to the extent that even professors of constitutional law, with a few courageous exceptions, had to skirt issues of human rights. Furthermore, when Taiwan was expelled from the UN in 1971, it was also severed from the developing international human rights regime. These decades of internal and external isolation have estranged Taiwan from understanding of the universal standards of human right issues.

     This legacy continues to have negative consequences for promotion and protection of human rights, despite Taiwan democratization. Such civil and political rights required by the opening up of the political process (e.g. freedom of speech, assembly and association) have been restored and are now relatively secure, but other areas are either only advancing slowly (e.g. legal rights and the associated judicial reform) or remain underdeveloped (e.g. economic, social and cultural rights). The almost complete lack of human rights education and the lack of specific institutional protection have also magnified the isolation of Taiwan from the international mainstream.