Proposal Advocates for Adding Human Rights Requirements To Worldcon Bids

…and I’m happy to see this being put before the membership at this year’s WSFS Business Meeting in Glasgow.  (Read the announcement on File 770.)
In fact, it’s almost exactly the proposal I called for in my August 1st, 2020 article “Why a Chengdu Worldcon Should Be A Chengdhon’t” ,(an updated version of that post can be found here) writing –

…if someone wanted to introduce a proposal to the WSFS rules to pre-vet future WorldCon bids, the CATO Institutes independent annual listing might be the way to go:  for example, no country ranking below 25th place for the two years prior may be considered for a bid.  Of course that would have to be caveated at least for changes in regime during the consideration period…But I will note that ALL previous WorldCons have taken place in countries currently in the Top 25.  Those countries are bolded above.)  (Perhaps Fans in one of those 25 countries can be persuaded to propose a 2023 bid….)

and, in another article on the same subject –

Here at Amazing Stories, I have framed that discussion as a question of whether or not Worldcon should restrict events to countries whose governments and laws “support Fannish values” of inclusion, diversity and equal rights regardless of gender, orientation, religion, origin, etc., and I have suggested that studies of governments and human rights by one international human rights organization or another be used as a way to vet the appropriateness of bidding countries.

While the proposal in question lists other Human Rights institutions (three, in fact, which is a good idea), it’s the change to the bidding process I’ve been advocating for almost four years.

I certainly hopes this passes – and that an additional proposal is put forth to apply these new standards to EXISTING bids.

Further, I hope that it will be applied to bids in both directions:  not only preventing bids from countries that are unsuited to hosting a Worldcon, but also used to support bids that are unfairly maligned.

I’ll  note also that one of the indexes the proposal recommends is Freedom House.  Amazing Stories was privileged to post commentary on this subject from a representative of The Human Rights Foundation which references the same organization and supports the concept of this proposal.

I also wish to push home two additional points related to this discussion:

1. Neither Worldcon nor Fandom has the influence, reach, economic impact nor political cache to sway the policies of a dictatorial, anti-human rights governmental regime.  Hosting Worldcons in such  countries ONLY BENEFITS THE DICTATORIAL REGIME.

2. Worldcon should NEVER be held in any country that does not welcome Fannish diversity.  Period.

If you are planning on voting at this years WSFS Business Meeting, please vote to accept this proposal!

***

Here’s that map in larger form: