Dec 15, 2020 | News
On 15 December 2020, the eighth anniversary of the enforced disappearance of Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone, the ICJ joined 53 organizations and 19 individuals in reiterating its calls on the Government to reveal his fate and whereabouts and to investigate his and all other cases of alleged enforced disappearance in the country.
The statement condemned the Government’s ongoing failure to adequately investigate all allegations of enforced disappearance in Laos, which has been compounded by years of near complete lack of commitment to address this serious crime or provide an effective remedy or reparation to its victims and their families.
In June 2020, during the third Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Laos, the Government refused to accept all five recommendations that called for an adequate investigation into Sombath’s enforced disappearance. The Government failed to support another eight recommendations that called for investigations into all cases of alleged enforced disappearances in Laos. Despite the government accepting that “the search for missing Lao citizens, including Sombath Somphone, is the duty of the Lao government”, it has failed to evidence any political will to effectively execute or fulfill this duty.
Sombath Somphone was last seen at a police checkpoint on a busy street in Vientiane on the evening of 15 December 2012. Footage from a CCTV camera showed that Sombath’s vehicle was stopped at the police checkpoint and that, within minutes, unknown individuals forced him into another vehicle and drove him away in the presence of police officers. CCTV footage also showed an unknown individual driving Sombath’s vehicle away from the city center. The presence of police officers at Sombath’s abduction and their failure to intervene strongly indicates State agents’ participation in Sombath’s enforced disappearance.
Lao authorities have repeatedly claimed they have been investigating Sombath’s enforced disappearance, but have failed to disclose any new findings to the public since 8 June 2013. They have not met with Sombath’s wife, Shui Meng Ng, since December 2017. No substantive information about the investigation has been shared by the authorities with Ng or Sombath’s family, indicating that, for all intents and purposes, the police investigation has been de facto suspended.
The statement reiterated a call for the establishment of a new independent and impartial investigative body tasked with determining Sombath’s fate and whereabouts, with the authority to seek and receive international technical assistance to conduct a professional and effective investigation in accordance with international standards. This is a call which multiple signatory organizations have been making since his enforced disappearance in 2012.
The statement further urged the Lao government to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), which Laos signed in September 2008; incorporate its provisions into the country’s legal framework, implement it in practice, and recognize the competence of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances to receive and consider communications from or on behalf of the victims.
The full statement is available here.
Contact
Kingsley Abbott, ICJ Senior Legal Adviser, e: kingsley.abbott(a)icj.org
Dec 15, 2020 | Agendas, Events
Join ICJ and IHOP in this online conference in which Turkish and international experts will discuss the current challenges in Turkey to promptly and fully implement the judgments of the Court and how to improve the execution of judgments in the Turkish national system.
Turkey is the Council of Europe member state with the third highest number of European Court of Human Rights judgments awaiting execution, after the Russian Federation and Ukraine. As a Party to the European Convention on Human Rights and founding member of the Council of Europe, Turkey has committed to implement all rulings of the Strasbourg Court, yet the results of this commitment are far from clear.
Implementation of the European Court judgments is a key indicator in Europe of a country’s commitment to human rights and the rule of law, and failure to implement judgments fundamentally undermines access to justice for victims of human rights violations by watering down the impact of their litigation before the Court.
Failure to implement judgments through general implementation measures reforming laws, policies and practices, also leads to persistent, repeated violations of the States’ obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. This problem has existed for many years in Turkey, leaving long-standing systemic human rights problems unsolved. Recently civil society has denounced the Turkish authorities’ attempts to circumvent the general application of certain new key rulings of the European Court.
In this conference, Turkish and international experts will discuss the current challenges in Turkey to promptly and fully implement the judgments of the Court and how to improve the execution of judgments in the Turkish national system:
– Justice Egbert Myjer, Former Judge at the European Court of Human Rights and Commissioner of the ICJ,
– Prof. Philip Leach, Professor of Human Rights Law at Middlesex University
– George Stafford, Director at European Implementation Network
– Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey Director, Human Rights Watch
– Kerem Altıparmak, ICJ Legal Consultant
– Ayşe Bingöl Demir, Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project Co-Director, Lawyer
– Prof. Başak Çalı, Professor of International Law, Co-Director of the Centre for Fundamental Rights at the Hertie School
The event will be introduced and moderated by Feray Salman, General Coordinator of the Human Rights Joint Platform (IHOP), Roisin Pillay, Director of the ICJ Europe and Central Asia Programme, and Massimo Frigo, Senior Legal Adviser of the ICJ Europe and Central Asia Programme.<
TO REGISTER WRITE TO: ihop@ihop.org.tr
IHOPICJ-ZoomConference-ExecutionECtHRTurkey-Agenda-2020-ENG (download the agenda in English)
IHOPICJ-ZoomConference-ExecutionECtHRTurkey-Agenda-2020-TUR (download the agenda in Turkish)
The event is part of the REACT project: implemented jointly by ICJ and IHOP, this project seeks to support the role of civil society actors in turkey in ensuring effective access to justice for the protection of human rights. This project is funded by the European Union. The views expressed in the event do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the EU.
Dec 8, 2020 | News
The ICJ with partners has intervened in European Court for Human Rights case concerning collective expulsions, including of children from Croatia.
The ICJ and partners (European Council for Refugees and Exiles, Dutch Council for Refugees, AIRE Center and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee) intervened today in the case S.B. v Croatia (Application No. 18810/19) at the European Court for Human rights.
The case concerns collective expulsion of migrants, including children, from Croatia to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and excessive use of force.
In the intervention, the organisations have highlighted international legal standards regarding the principle of non-refoulement and prohibition of collective expulsions. They also point to the need to take into account specific vulnerabilities of asylum seekers and children in order to guarantee enhanced safeguards afforded to them under international and EU law.
The organisations also note that in operations aimed at imposing restrictions on freedom of movement or deprivation of liberty to carry out an expulsion, the use of force should only be employed exceptionally and subject to strict necessity and proportionality requirements. The lack of resistance to law enforcement officials, per se renders force unlawful.
Please find the third party intervention here.
Dec 7, 2020 | News
The ICJ called today on the Council of the EU, the European Parliament and the European Commission to give a central role to the judiciary and ensure effective judicial remedies to prevent and redress human rights violations, in the draft Regulation on “Terrorist Content Online”.
The call comes as the final phase of the negotiations between the EU institutions on the draft Regulation begin this Thursday 10 December..
The ICJ is concerned that without procedures that incorporate core rule of law principles in the Regulation, there is a risk of improper and overreaching suppression of content that will undermine freedom of expression and other rights online.
Among the ICJ ‘s concerns with the proposal as it currently stands, is that it does not provide for mandatory judicial authorization and judicial review of orders by national authorities to remove content online deemed to be “terrorist”.
According to draft Article 4 of the proposal, national “competent authorities” would have the power to issue a decision requiring a hosting service provider to remove “terrorist” content or disable access to it within one hour from receipt of the removal order.
The ICJ considers that the power to issue removal orders to censor content online within an hour, without prior judicial authorisation, risks leading to excessive, arbitrary or discriminatory interference with the freedoms of expression, religion, assembly and association online as well as with rights to privacy and data protection of persons residing or present in EU Member States.
Under international and EU human rights law applicable to EU Member States, any restriction on these rights must be prescribed by law so that their application is clear and foreseeable, must be necessary and proportionate in the circumstances of the individual case, must be non-discriminatory and must allow access to an effective remedy. Furthermore, any person must have access to a court of law to access justice against breach of their rights.
The proposal, if approved without modifications, would allow – as yet undetermined – national authorities to order the removal of content online from host service providers, even if these are residing outside of their State or of the EU, without any authorisation from a court of law.
Furthermore, the definition of “terrorist” content relies heavily on a recent EU Directive on Combatting terrorism (2017/541) that allows for excessively wide criminalisation of forms of expression, such as the offence of “glorification of terrorism”.
The proposal is also likely to trigger a jurisdictional quagmire among EU Member States that will in the medium term be counter-productive to the objective of countering terrorism.
The power of a non-judicial authority of a Member State to issue orders binding upon public and private entities of another Member State, without prior judicial approval on the constitutionality and lawfulness of the order and of the rights in each jurisdiction, will seriously undermine mutual trust among jurisdictions, a core principle for the functioning of the EU Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. This is particularly important in light of the serious threats to the Rule of Law occurring in certain EU Member States that are already impairing the functioning of other EU criminal cooperation instruments, such as the European Arrest Warrant.
The ICJ therefore calls on all the actors heading the negotiations on the EU Regulation on “Terrorist Content Online” to adjust the current draft in order to provide for a central role of judicial authorities of EU Member States in the scheme of the Regulation by requiring designated “competent authorities” under Article 4 of the Regulation to be judicial authorities; to provide for judicial review, and to include adequate safeguards in the Regulation to ensure the protection of the human rights of any person subject to their jurisdiction.
Background
In 2018 the European Commission published a proposal of the EU Regulation on “Terrorist Content” Online. The aim of the Regulation is to establish uniform rules to prevent the misuse of hosting services for the dissemination of terrorist content online.
The Regulation has been since discussed by the Council of the EU and the European Parliament, who are currently in the final stages of negotiation in the EU legislative procedure in closed sessions among representatives of the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the European Commission (the so-called trialogue procedure).
Contact:
Karolina Babicka, Legal Adviser, Europe and Central Asia Programme, e: karolina.babicka(a)icj.org
Massimo Frigo, Senior Legal Adviser, Europe and Central Asia Programme, e: massimo.frigo(a)icj.org, t: +41 79 749 99 49
Nov 29, 2020 | News
The ICJ and its Swiss section (ICJ-CH) regret the results of the vote yesterday in Switzerland rejecting the popular initiative for responsible businesses. While the majority of the popular vote approved the initiative, there was no majority of voters in a majority of Cantons.
Under the Swiss constitution, to be approved, such initiative amending the constitution needs the majority of both the popular vote in Switzerland and in a majority of Cantons part of the Swiss Confederation.
“The strong support gathered by this initiative, expressed in the majority of the popular vote, is encouraging, and a strong message that the Federal Parliament and the Federal Council must take into account in the process of the implementation of the legislative counter-proposal and in further legislation,” said Marco Sassòli, ICJ commissioner.
A counter-proposal prepared by the Federal Council is now approved by default. This counter-proposal foresees due diligence obligations for some sectors and reporting obligations, but no specific legal liability.
The proposed initiative would have required multinationals based in Switzerland to respect human rights also abroad, and to carry out human rights due diligence to identify and prevent potential human rights abuses.
It would also have clarified the multinational’s legal responsibility for violations of internationally recognized human rights and environmental norms by enterprises that it controls and operate abroad.
