launched two innovative legal databases: the Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity (SOGI) UN Database and the SOGI Legislative Database. Read the rest of this entry »
Posts Tagged ‘International Commission of Jurists’
ICJ launches two innovative legal databases on sexual orientation
August 1, 2013SAVE THE DATE: MEA 2013 CEREMONY ON 8 OCTOBER IN GENEVA
June 29, 2013The City of Geneva and the Martin Ennals Foundation announce the 2013 edition of Martin Ennals Award, which will take place on Tuesday 8 October 2013 at 18h00 at the Uni-Dufour, Geneva. The Laureate will be announced Read the rest of this entry »
Tomorrow, 24 April, comes announcement of the Final Nominees of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders
April 23, 2013Tomorrow, 24 April, at 11hoo Geneva time, the three Final Nominees of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders 2013 will be announced. You can find the result here on this blog, of course, or on the site of the Martin Ennals Award: http://www.martinennalsaward.org. The following 10 NGOs on the Jury will also carry the news:
Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders
– Amnesty International,
– Human Rights Watch,
– Human Rights First,
– Int’l Federation for Human Rights,
– World Organisation Against Torture,
– Front Line Defenders
– International Commission of Jurists,
– German Diakonie,
– International Service for Human Rights
– HURIDOCS.
Dalai Lama to honor Theo van Boven and ICJ with award
April 4, 2013
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Most of you (but fortunately not all) seem to have understood that my previous post “Gadaffi Human Rights Award resurrected: Mugabe rumored to be Laureate” was not without good reason announced for April 1st.
There is however also more serious news on the awards front: On 13-14 April 2013 the Dalai Lama will hand out the Light of Truth Awards at a ceremony in Fribourg, Switzerland. The award is organised by the International Campaign for individuals and institutions who have made significant contributions to the public understanding of Tibet and the struggle for human rights and democratic freedoms for the Tibetan people. Among The Light of Truth honorees 2013 are:
- The International Commission of Jurists, a member on the MEA Jury, and
- Theo van Boven, Dutch professor emeritus in international law, former Director of Human Rights in the UN and a Patron of the MEA.
Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of the international humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) will introduce the Dalai Lama.
Details and tickets: http://dalailama2013.ch/index.php/en/.
Press contacts: Kate Saunders, email: press@savetibet.org, tel: +447947138612, www.savetibet.org.
Previous videos of Light of Truth awards: http://www.youtube.com/intercampaigntibet
Legislative restrictions on “homosexual propaganda” threaten LGBT human rights defenders
February 27, 2013Legislative 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:
Legislative restrictions on “homosexual propaganda” threaten LGBT human rights defenders | ICJ.
HURIDOCS exists 30 years: my interview now on line
November 30, 2012
Hans Thoolen talks about the excitement of founding HURIDOCS, why the human rights community nowadays resembles a church with too many priests (and too few believers) and what made Latin American human rights defenders embrace technology before everyone else. Looking back at decades of involvement in human rights work, he also sketches out his idea of a multimedia platform that gives human rights defenders the space to inspire others.
What was the most exciting idea about founding HURIDOCS?
It started for me and the others at this conference in 1979 near Paris. During this conference we sensed there was space for better cooperation among NGOs, especially with new technology. Mind you: this was 1979, well before the internet, and information technology was hardly used. Our idea was to somewhere, somehow seek some level of agreement among NGOs – or at least to create the tools with which working together would be possible in the future.
in 1982 Quito with Jose Antonio Viera de Gallo from Chile
Hans Thoolen (second from right) at the Quito conference in Spring 1982, the most important conference before HURIDOCS was officially founded a few months later.
How did you move on from there?
That idea survived the meeting and there was some money left over from the Ford Foundation and that was used to have informal consultations. So for a few years, Martin Ennals, who had just stepped down as secretary-general of Amnesty International, Friederike Knabe, Laurie Wiseberg, Bjorn Stormorken and myself (working for the International Commission of Jurists) were the people who worked on the follow-up. We had meetings in London, Brussels, Oslo and Geneva and we were asking NGOs what they thought of the potential of information technology and testing out ideas on information exchange.
That slowly lead to the first big conference, in Quito, Ecuador, in 1982, partly because the Latinos had taken to the use of technology well before the West – in the NGO world, not in the business world, of course. This maybe was surprising, but when you thought about it, not that strange.
Why not? And how did this lead to the founding of HURIDOCS?
…….
………
and the rest you have to read yourself on:
http://www.huridocs.org/2012/11/we-were-breaking-new-ground/
Human Rights and the Elderly: the future
June 1, 2012This post is not directly about human rights defenders but rather touches an area where they are not so commonly engaged. My interest in the area is of course to a large extent self-interest as the 65 benchmark is nearing but was piqued by a recent visitor from Australia, my good friends Rodney and Noni Lewis.
Rodney Lewis is a practicing lawyer engaged in resolving legal problems for the aged and the ageing in our community. He is based in Mona Vale, a suburb of Sydney. He has been a practising lawyer for over 40 years. He is the author of the legal text Elder Law in Australia (published by Lexis Nexis Sydney, in 2004). Rodney’s interest in Aged Care came through his wife Noni who is a registered nurse. His inquiries sprang from their discussions and led to his research, writing, lecturing and the preparation of the only text book on the subject. Rodney’s interest in Elder Law and the legal rights of older persons also stems from his interest and commitment to human rights. (Rodney has been active with the International Commission of Jurists, and assisted me greatly in writing the book on Human Rights in Indonesia; he also undertook trail observations missions).
Over the past several decades a massive change has taken place in a key demographic area of the planet’s human population: age. If the current trend of lowering birth rates and lowering death rates continues, by the year 2050 one out of five people will be aged 60 years or older and by 2150, one out of every three people will be aged 60 years or older. Additionally, the older-person support ratio is falling in both more and less developed regions, which could further lessen the ability of societies and governments to care for their aging populations.
These demographic trends create unique challenges for all people, particularly for the governments of nation-states around the globe. Elderly individuals are often subject to discrimination and abuse because they are perceived as easily taken advantage of. There is also a prevalent belief among many that elderly persons are worthless in today’s fast-paced, globalized and increasingly industrialized world. Obviously, with the number of elderly people on earth at any one time rising rapidly, there is an increased urgency to address the rights and roles of elderly persons in our world.
For more on this a good starting point is Human Rights Education Associates on: http://www.hrea.org/index.php?doc_id=435
From a cursory glance at the internet it seems that Canada and Australia have gone furthest in organizing elder law, e.g. http://www.elderlaw.com.au/
Lawyers for Lawyers adds a crucial element to the protection of Human Rights Defenders
December 12, 2011On 1 April 2011 I reported on the award given by Lawyers for Lawyers (L4L) in the Netherlands and promised to come back to the main topic of the related expert meeting which was the question of the independence of lawyers, and in particular how to raise the status of the “Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers” by making them better known.
The organization has kept its word and created before the end of the year a database that brings together all information on the Basic Principles, which are basically soft law but are an important set of international standards. The database contains documents in which references are made to the Basic Principles, such as documents of the UN, special rapporteurs, non-governmental organisations, (regional) courts and so on. You can have a preview of this database on the L4L website http://www.advocatenvooradvocaten.nl/basic-principles/
There is also a booklet Building on Basic Principles, in which all the papers from the expert meeting, are published, which can be ordered from LAWYERS FOR LAWYERS, Adrie van de Streek, Executive Director mailto:info@lawyersforlawyers.nl.
Moreover, the International Commission of Jurists organized on 5-6 December 2011 an important seminar on the “Strengthening the Rule of Law in Times of Transition – The Role of Lawyers and Bar Associations”. One of the participants was Muhannad Al-Hassani, the 2010 MEA Laureate, who was disbarred by his less courageous colleagues in the Bar Association. For more information on this event please contact: Graham Leung at graham.leung@icj.org.
OMCT changes Secretary General after more than 25 years
September 2, 2011Yesterday and today I was in Geneva to prepare the 13 October MEA ceremony with our partner the City of Geneva. I used the occasion to go and greet the new Secretary General of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), the principal global coalition of anti-torture organizations. As from 1 September 2011, Gerald Staberock succeeds Eric Sottas who had led the organisation since its inception in 1985 and who is taking his extremely well-deserved retirement.
Eric Sottas is the quintessential international human rights worker, constantly in touch with the human rights defenders at the local level and keeping a steady eye on the ever-changing global scene . He made sure the organisation stayed steadfast in the fight against torture, resistant to pressure and intransigent in the face of what was fashionable, initiated studies that provoked reflection on the subject of torture” said Mr Yves Berthelot, OMCT President.
Gerald Staberock, who joined the OMCT nine months ago, bring his own wide experience in anti-torture and rule of law reforms in transition countries. His special interest in the debate on torture and counter-terrorism over the last ten years will serve him well. ” Upon starting his job Gerald Staberock stressed that “The absolute prohibition of torture is challenged today through lack of respect and a pervasive culture of impunity in many parts of the world. At the same time there are opportunities not least through the transitions of the Arab spring to advance the fight against torture. This is the time to double the effort, to assist and support victims of torture, to ensure accountability and prevent torture, and to counter public complacency in the face of torture.
Gerald Staberock, born on June 13, 1968 in Tübingen, Germany, led for eight years different global programs at the International Commission of Jurists , including its Centre for Judges and Lawyers and its Global Security and Rule of Law Initiative. In this context he coordinated the most comprehensive global study on counter-terrorism and human rights . Before joining the ICJ he worked at the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) on rule of law and anti-torture projects, including on penitentiary and legal reforms in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 