A regional workshop in Bangkok has highlighted issues like enforced disappearances, legal support for families of the disappeared and peaceful assembly and association. High on the agenda is also protecting rights activists, within the ASEAN regional human rights system. Presenter: Sen Lam interviews Emmerlyne Gil, international legal advisor, International Commission of Jurists, Bangkok: Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, 20 March 2014, there was a fierce debate in the UN Council of Human Rights where the issue of the right of NGOs to speak came up, more precisely whether accredited NGOs had the right to let speakers mention other NGOs who do not have such accreditation. In this case it was China taking exemption to the FIDH letting its member NGOs (including a pro Tibetan group) take the floor in its name. For more context see my post of yesterday: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/china-in-the-un-human-rights-council-manages-to-silence-cao-shunli-as-well-as-ngos/.
The Chair and Secretariat rightly spoke of a standing practice in this regards. One such precedent is 30 years old and probably lost to most observers, so I give here my own recollection of this story in the hope that someone with access to the UN files or a better memory can confirm or correct the details.
It is 1982 and the Working group on Disappearances (created in 1980 after a long struggle and with the active support from the then Director Theo van Boven)) is reporting to the Commission on Human Rights (the predecessor of the Council). The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), of which I was the Executive Secretary at the time, has lined up to speak. Read the rest of this entry »
(Cao Shunli, the Chinese activist who died in custody (c) Photograph: Reuters)
For those with an interest in how the UN Council deals with criticism – in this case of China – should follow the debate on the UN webcast (or see the video on demand later) [http://webtv.un.org/live-now/watch/25th-regular-session-of-the-human-rights-council/2178978642001/#]. What happened in short is that during the debate on the adoption of China’s UPR report on 20 March, the International Service of Human Rights (ISHR) called for a few moments of silence to remember Cao Shunli, the human rights defender who recently died in detention (see references below). China then invoked a point of order saying that speakers should make general statements and that did not include asking for silence. During a long procedural debate many views were expressed – mostly supportive of China – but some others clearly stating that freedom of speech included the right not to speak. The interpretation of the rules of procedure then seemed to lead to the conclusion that the UPR (Universal Periodic Review) should not be ‘politicized”….and that from the eminently political entities called Governments! Sensing that a majority would support it, China insisted on a ruling by the Chairman that this kind of intervention needs to be ruled out for the future. The big majority of States, fearing a ‘precedent-setting’, rejected even the compromise proposal by the Chair to discuss the issue further in the Bureau (at a later time) with a vote of 20 against 13 (and 12 abstentions). The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), the second NGO to get the floor, then continued the request for a minute of silence for Cao Shunli. This was of course again interrupted. So, the Council ended up supporting China’s tough stance, in spite of several other NGOs and a few countries coming out with strong support for the moment of silence.
When the FIDH then let one its member organisations (including the Campaign Against Tibet) speak on its behalf, the Chinese delegation (perhaps emboldened by its earlier success) decided to interrupt again asking that the FIDH only identifies itself and not its members. This led to another procedural debate on whether NGOs with consultative status are allowed to mention other NGOs that have no such status (a standing practice I should add, which was established far back in the 80s when Argentina tried – in vain – to stop the ICJ from letting an Argentinian lawyer, Emilio Mignone, to speak about the disappearance of his own daughter).
Perhaps there will be further debate on these procedural aspects, but it is unlikely that the UPR comes out of this as a serious innovation in dealing with human rights violations.
(High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay at the 25th session of the Human Rights Council. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré)
Yesterday, 3 March 2014, the top UN functionaries opened the 25th session of the UN Human Rights Council with calls for the protection of members of civil society who pursue justice in their countries (a long euphemism for Human Rights Defenders).
“Streets, airwaves, entire countries are buzzing with demands for economic, social and political justice,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said. Setting out this agenda and acknowledging the hard work that lay ahead in ensuring that all people enjoyed equal rights, Ms. Pillay emphasized the important role of civil society in those efforts. “We need to work together to ensure that the space, voice and knowledge of civil society is nurtured in all our countries,” she stressed. Recalling reports of what she labelled “intolerable” reprisals against people who coöperate with the UN’s human rights activities, she called for more action to protect them. “The UN itself is required to protect and support those who contribute to its work, often at great personal risk,” she said.
Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-moon added on this point that, “No one should have to risk their life for standing up and speaking out on violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.” Civil society was the representative of “We the Peoples,” as cited in the opening of the UN Charter, and that it must be able to carry out its vital work, “free of reprisals and intimidation.” In that context, the Secretary-General highlighted the “Rights Up Front” action plan that he launched last year to ensure that human rights considerations were the top priority in all UN activities. “This initiative seeks to ensure that the United Nations system leverages the full breadth of its mandates to protect people at risk,” he said. [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2013/12/26/rights-up-front-presented-by-jan-eliason-it-is-irrefutable-that-serious-human-rights-violations-are-the-best-early-warning-of-atrocities/]
Interesting to note that while in Geneva, the Secretary-General met 4 NGOs: the International Service for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists. Their discussion certainly stressed human rights defenders and the importance of protecting them from attacks.
While most attention is focused on the demonstration in Ukraine, a recent report by the respected International Commission of Jurists [ICJ] casts light on alarming trend of disbarments and suspensions of lawyers. The report casts light on a conflict in the legal profession, which has led to apparently arbitrary disciplinary action against a significant number of lawyers. The report reveals the escalating dispute in the legal profession following the implementation of a new law, signed by the President on 5 July 2012, which significantly changed the organization of the profession and provides for the establishment of a new bar association. The law,Read the rest of this entry »
Nominations for the 2014MARTIN ENNALS AWARD FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS (MEA) can now be submitted electronically at http://www.martinennalsaward.org. Deadline: 9 December 2013.
The Award is granted annually to an individual, or exceptionally an organisation, in recognition of their commitment and ongoing efforts in the defence and promotion of human rights. Nominees must be currently involved in work for the promotion and protection of human rights. Special account is taken of those who are at risk and have demonstrated an active record of combating human rights violations by courageous and innovative means. The MEA aims to encourage individuals or organisations, particularly those who are working in conditions hostile to fundamental human rights and who are in need of protection.
The present value of the annual Award is 20’000 Swiss Francs, to be used for further work in the field of human rights. The following organisations participate in the Jury that selects the award: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Front Line, Human Rights First, International Federation for Human Rights, the World Organisation Against Torture, International Commission of Jurists, International Service for Human Rights, Protestant Agency for Diakonia and Development (Germany) and HURIDOCS.
The Ceremony is hosted by the City of Geneva in late 2013. They provide each of the final three nominees with project funds of 11’650 CHF and a 5’000 CHF travel grant.
launched two innovative legal databases: the Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity (SOGI) UN Database and the SOGI Legislative Database. Read the rest of this entry »
(Karim Lahidji, President of the International Federation of Human Rights(c) FRANCE 24)
Today Karim Lahidji was elected as new President of FIDH. He succeeds to Souhayr Belhassen who headed the Federation for six years. The vote was held during the 38th FIDH Congress in Istanbul where the FIDH member organisations were meeting to elect the new International Board and define the main FIDH orientations for the next three years. “It is an immense honour Read the rest of this entry »
Legislative restrictions on “homosexual propaganda” threaten LGBT human rights defenders says the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva which is concerned by the growing number of laws and legislative proposals in a variety of countries that severely threaten the work of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons and human rights defenders. Ahead of the 22nd session of the Human Rights Council the ICJ today (27 February 2013) submitted a written statement to the UN encouraging the Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders to follow up on these laws and legislative proposals. Pointing to unlawful restrictions on the freedoms of association and assembly, and the freedom of expression, in several countries (including Uganda, Ukraine and the Russian Federation), the ICJ encourages the Special Rapporteur to call on governments to protect these rights for everyone and to ensure that any restrictions comply with the requirements of legality, of necessity and proportionality and of non-discrimination on all grounds. Moreover, in the case of laws or legislative proposals that fail to comply with these requirements, Governments should take appropriate action.
To download the statement, go to the press announcement:
What follows are my SPEAKING NOTES ON THE OCCASION OF THE NJCM-THOOLEN AWARD on Thursday 26 April 2012, the Hague. At this gathering of the Dutch Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (NJCM) I had the honor to hand over the award for the best master thesis on human rights.
Dear friends,
When the Dutch Lawyers Committee, in 2005, decided to make an award in my name, I was most touched, especially as they had apparently dropped the requirement that I should die first. Being alive has the additional advantage that on occasion I will be able to hand over the award myself, which I will do with the greatest pleasure in a few moments. This pleasure is the greater as the winning master paper touched on a topic very close to my heart: the role of the media or as it is sometimes referred to the “Fourth Estate”. There is some controversy about who exactly coined the term, but the most telling statement comes from Oscar Wilde who wrote: “Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. …”. That was said in 1981 and it is hard to imagine that that Oscar Wilde would come to a different conclusion more than a century later.
Spinning (an important element in the toolkit of media framing) has become a profession and the title ‘spin doctor’ is quite appropriate as the results are indeed often doctored. There are surely great historical cases that we cannot recognise because we ourselves have been successfully framed; who knows what positive image Attila the Hun could have enjoyed if only his PR people had done a more professional job. To take a more serious and recent case: let’s look at the so-called ‘failure’ of the UN in Somalia. This was a combined UN-US operation with a humanitarian mandate. When in October 1993, 18 U.S. Rangers were killed in a fierce battle with Aideed’s forces and television showed the body of a dead American soldier being dragged through the streets, American public opinion overnight turned against further U.S. involvement in Somalia and Clinton pulled out all troops soon afterwards. Although the Rangers were part of Washington’s own separate Somalia operation, and the US did not want to function under UN command, the incident was played and replayed as a major “UN failure.” The UN was widely, and wrongly, blamed for the gruesome deaths of the U.S. Rangers, despite the fact that they were not part of the UN operation, something that President Clinton finally acknowledged in 1996. Yet most people around the worlds continue to hold the UN responsible. I am afraid that each of us can probably come up with a favorite case of the media having got the better of the truth but that should not be tonight’s debate.
Laura Henderson in her paper “Tortured reality” has gone one important step further. She has investigated how media framing of waterboarding affects judicial independence. She had to limit herself to the US judiciary and to the specific case of ‘waterboarding’ in order to create an environment stable enough to draw some statistical conclusions. Her research is done very neatly. She makes clear that the concept of independence of the judiciary has always been defined broadly and not just as a prohibition of interference by the state, although that remains the classical background. Cases of media pressure are dealt with in jurisprudence but they have always been considered in the context of an independent judge who is well-trained and not easily swayed by what the flimsy press has to say. The little jurisprudence there is does not contemplate a case of wilful, orchestrated influencing of all the media with the purpose of changing the perception and language of an existing concept.
What makes the study of Henderson stand out that it exactly tries pin down to what extent this has happened with the question whether the technique of ‘waterboarding’ changed in the minds of the judges after the 11 September watershed (no pun intended). The torrent of rhetoric not only framed everything in a ‘war’ context but also specifically tried to downplay the labelling of waterboarding as torture. And she did find the evidence. I will not reveal it all – you have to read for yourself the whole article once the NJCM has rightly published it. Laura herself indicates that further work is needed on how the independence of the judiciary is undermined by media framing and I hope that will be the case. She also gives some very useful indications of how the media framing could be countered, e.g. by strengthening the pluriformity of the media and raising the awareness of the judiciary. She describes her recommendations as ‘simple, yet effective”. Here I beg to differ. There is nothing simple about changing the media landscape, especially if one adds the television and social media, which her study understandably had to leave out. The magnitude and multitude of media is such that no-one can really do much about it. All recent studies on the effect of the internet on our information intake show that they tend to solidify the dominant opinions/news/books etc, while giving great potential to small niche items, including the nutty and the genial. What gets squeezed is the moderate, considered, well-argued, balanced stuff in the middle. My fear is that the voice of the NJCM may well have the qualities described above!
In the end there can be only one winner. A feature of almost any award and painfully brought home two days ago in Geneva where I was for the announcement of the 3 nominees for 2012 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. All 3 nominees are extremely courageous Human Rights Defenders (Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, the multimedia monk form Cambodia, and Shirin Ebadi’s former lawyer: Nasrin Sotoudeh) and the Jury making the final choice on 2 October will have a hard time.
Still, the hard choices have been made already for the NJCM Thoolen Award – may I take this occasion to thank the Jury and Franka for their excellent work – and I am proud to hand over the prizes to the 3 finalists.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 