Posts Tagged ‘treaty bodies’
October 18, 2016
The Permanent Missions of Costa Rica, Finland, and Switzerland to the United Nations, together with Amnesty International and the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), are organizing a side event in the margins of the General Assembly’s 71st session in New York on 24 October 2016 on the topic of: Implementation of United Nations human rights treaty body recommendations.
The event will take place at 3pm in Conference Room 6 of United Nations HQ in New York.
Some of the question to be discussed are: How can implementation of human rights treaty bodies’ recommendations be strengthened? What progress has there been in the area of follow-up and implementation since the High Commissioner’s 2012 report on strengthening the United Nations human rights treaty body system and Resolution 68/268? What are the national mechanisms for reporting and follow-up (NMRF) and which models have been the most effective in different States?
The discussion will focus on tools to encourage engagement and compliance with human rights treaty body recommendations in order to improve the promotion and protection human rights for all, including the treaty body follow-up procedures, national mechanisms for reporting and follow-up, and the role of civil society. Speakers will include representatives of treaty bodies, OHCHR, civil society, and government.
For more information, please contact m.sinclair@ishr.ch.
Posted in AI, human rights, ISHR | 1 Comment »
Tags: AI, Costa Rica, Finland, implementation, international human rights instruments, ISHR, national mechanisms, New York, side event, Switzerland, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, treaty bodies, UN
January 12, 2016
The ISHR on 3 December 2015 carried a profile on Sharon Hom, human rights defender working on human rights in China.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, ISHR | Leave a Comment »
Tags: China, Civil society, Hong Kong, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights in China (HRIC), human rights mechanisms, international cooperation, profiles, Sharon Hom, teaching, treaty bodies, UPR, woman human rights defender
February 17, 2015
For someone who 25 years ago (!!) started the development of legal databases on human rights (specifically the legal protection of refugees) and wrote articles about it (e.g Int J Refugee Law (1989) 1 (1):89-100.doi: 10.1093/ijrl/1.1.89Pp. 89-100, see ABSTRACT below), the news that the UN has now published, on-line, a database of case law on human rights is exciting and it should be for all practitioners.
The new site http://juris.ohchr.org/ contains all case law issued by the UN human rights expert committees, the Treaty Bodies.
The database was developed using data from the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) of Utrecht University School of Law (of which I had the honor to be the first Director). Since the mid-1990s, SIM had developed a comprehensive record on the jurisprudence stemming from the decisions by four Treaty Bodies on complaints brought by individuals. Over 20 years, academics compiled and indexed Treaty Bodies’ case law, making the SIM database the most authoritative online resource on this. Due to budget restrictions, SIM stopped updating the database from 1 January 2014 and took it offline on 1 January 2015. However, SIM offered its data free of charge to the UN Human Rights Office.
“This allowed us to build our own database, with an expanded remit and search capability, and we aim to continue developing it. It is an important part of our efforts to make the work of the Treaty Bodies more visible and accessible, and we hope it will benefit a range of users all over the world,” said Mr. Ibrahim Salama Director of the UN Human Rights Treaties Division. .
There are 10 Treaty Bodies that review and monitor how States that have ratified a particular treaty are implementing the rights contained in it. Eight (listed below) can also consider complaints by individuals who believe their rights have been violated and who have exhausted all the legal steps in their own country.
The site http://juris.ohchr.org contains case law indexed by various categories, including State, date, subject and keywords, which can all be used as search criteria. Users can submit their comments on the functioning of the database as part of ongoing efforts to improve it.
The Committees that can receive and consider individual complaints are:
- Human Rights Committee (CCPR)
- Committee against Torture (CAT)
- Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
- Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
- Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
- Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED)
- Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)
- Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
Abstract of 1989 article on the development of legal databases: “Today’s information technology can be used to improve the legal protection of refugees, by providing information relevant to the asylum procedure, and laying the foundation for progressive development at the international level. The positive potential of legal databases is only now beginning to be realised, thanks to pioneering efforts within human rights and related documentation centre networks. UNHCR is helping to set up a case law database, in co-operation with non-governmental organizations. A database on national legislation is also planned, as is a full text database of international legal instruments database. Legal literature continues to be covered by the database REFLIT (REFugee LITerature) of UNHCR’s Centre for Documentation on Refugees (CDR/UNHCR). This article examines two basic kinds of information-retrieval systems, ‘free text’, and ‘indexed’, and considers their different structures, uses and search procedures, with reference to work on a forthcoming refugee thesaurus. The author calls attention to the need for standard formats, such as those of HURIDOCS, and to problems of scope and coverage. He suggests that information and documentation are areas in which practical co-operation between the UN, governments and non-governmental organizations could be implemented to advantage.”
DisplayNews.
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, OHCHR, UN | 2 Comments »
Tags: case law, databases, human rights, human rights education, human rights information, HURIDOCS, Ibrahim Salama, jurisprudence, legal databases, Netherlands Institute for Human Rights (SIM), on-line, refugee law, Thoolen, treaty bodies, UN
May 20, 2014
Thanks to Theo van Boven, who alerted me, I am happy to report another small step in the war against reprisals. On 21 April 2014 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on the Strengthening on the Treaty Bodies in which operative paragraph 8 strongly condemns intimidation and reprisals against human rights defenders and others who coöperate with the treaty bodies. (A/RES/69/268). For text of resolution: http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/68/268
for more posts on reprisals: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/reprisals/
Posted in Human Rights Defenders, UN | Leave a Comment »
Tags: intimidation, reprisals, retaliation, Theo van Boven, Thoolen, treaty bodies, UN, UN General Assembly, UN Resolution
May 6, 2014
While not directly about Human Rights Defenders, this workshop organised by the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the UN and others (see below) is of great importance to HRDs as they are the ones who provide most of the information to the Treaty Bodies, and are often the victims of the violations reported, including reprisals against them for having cooperated. Thus, this meeting on “The outcome of the treaty body strengthening process: Lessons learnt, implications and implementation” should be of interest to all. It takes place on 9 May 2014, 9.30am to 1pm in Room XXII, Palais des Nations, Geneva. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, UN | 1 Comment »
Tags: Andrew Clapham, Geneva, Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, international human rights law, international human rights treaties, meeting, Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the UN, reprisals, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, treaty bodies, UN
April 13, 2014
On 12 April Dan Harrison, in the Australian newspaper ‘Daily Life”, recalls how the famous Toonen case – decided 20 years ago – had a tremendous impact: “The fax arrived from Geneva on a Saturday almost exactly 20 years ago. The message on United Nations letterhead that landed on the fax machine at the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Groups office in Hobart’s Battery Point would change the lives of millions. It carried the UN Human Rights Committees finding that Tasmanian laws, which made consenting sex between adult men in private a criminal offence punishable by up to 21 years jail, were in violation of Australia’s international obligations.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, OHCHR, UN | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Australia, Human Rights Defenders, international obligations, LGBT, LGBT rights, Remedy Australia, Tasmania, Toonen, Toonen case, treaty bodies, treaty obligations, United Nations Human Rights Committee
January 15, 2014
Photo: ILO
With Costa Rica as the tenth country to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, children or their representatives will have the possibility to file an individual complaint as from April 2014,when the Protocol comes formally into effect, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) announcement on 14 January.
Posted in human rights, UN | Leave a Comment »
Tags: children, complaint procedure, Convention on the Rights of the Child, Costa Rica, Individual and group rights, international procedures, Optional Protocol, Optional Protocol 3 to Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratification, rights of children, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, treaty bodies, UN
September 20, 2013
Philip Alston, John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, and former UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions wrote a piece on one of the most crucial topics facing human rights defenders at the moment and which has figured regularly in this blog: the issue of retaliation or reprisals against those HRDs who cooperate with the Un and their Rapporteurs. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders, UN | 5 Comments »
Tags: fact finding, Geneva, Human right, Human Rights Defenders, International Service for Human Rights, ISHR, New York University School of Law, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Philip Alston, reprisals, retaliation, testimony, treaty bodies, UN Special Rapporteur, United Nations, United Nations Human Rights Council, WUNRN
May 13, 2013
Back from a short (Orthodox) holiday I resume my efforts to keep you abreast of developments relevant to Human Rights Defenders. The first item is that the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has finally come into force. It enables people to seek justice through individual complaints when their rights to, for example, food, adequate housing, education or health are violated. “Egregious violations of economic, social and cultural rights are occurring, often unnoticed, on a daily basis, which in the area of civil and political rights would have been immediately condemned. This Protocol will help to address this imbalance,” High Commissioner Navi Pillay said. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, complaint procedure, human rights, Navi Pillay, Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, treaty bodies, UN
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 