Privacy and electronic surveillance: discussion at the UN Human Rights Council

Privacy and electronic surveillance: discussion at the UN Human Rights Council

ICJ supported a joint written statement by civil society organizations  highlighting threats to privacy and other human rights engendered by electronic surveillance, and calling for the establishment of a UN mechanism on the issue, as the UN Human Rights Council discussed the issue in Geneva.

The organizations urge the Council to establish a dedicated special procedure mandate on the right to privacy for the following reasons:

  • A dedicated mandate holder would play a critical role in developing common understandings and furthering a considered and substantive interpretation of the right across a variety of settings, as recommended by the report. A dedicated mandate holder would also be an independent expert, allowing for a neutral articulation of the application of the right to privacy that draws on the input of all stakeholders.
  • Establishing a separate mandate for privacy would allow for the development of a coherent and complementary approach to the interaction between privacy, freedom of expression, and other rights.
  • A dedicated mandate holder would help assess the implementation by state and non-state actors of their applicable international responsibilities and obligations in a sustained and systematic way. Functions should include carrying out country visits; collecting best practices; receiving and seeking information from states, businesses, and other stakeholders; and issuing recommendations.

 

The full written statement, submitted by Human Rights Watch and endorsed by the other organisations, can be downloaded here (ICJ-UN-HRC27-JointStatementPrivacy-12092014) in PDF format.

Submission for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United States on the US military justice system

Submission for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United States on the US military justice system

The ICJ, Amnesty and independent experts Eugene R. Fidell, Elizabeth L. Hillman, Nancy Duff Campbell, made a submission for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United States on the failure of the US military justice system to comply with the State’s international human rights obligations.

USA-Military Justice system UPR-Advocacy-non legal submission-2014 (full text in pdf)

Discussion of “protection of the family” at UN Human Rights Council must reflect diversity and focus on human rights

Discussion of “protection of the family” at UN Human Rights Council must reflect diversity and focus on human rights

The ICJ and other NGOs have issued a joint statement urging the UN Human Rights Council to ensure that a discussion of “protection of the family” in September will reflect diversity and focus on human rights.

The ICJ is concerned, due to the way the resolution to establish the Panel discussion has been pursued, that some States will seek to exploit it as a vehicle for promoting a narrow, exclusionary and patriarchal concept of “the family” that denies equal protection to the human rights of individuals who belong to the various and diverse forms of family that exist across the globe.

Previous UN resolutions on the family include language, agreed by all States, that recognized that “various forms of the family exist”. The authors of the resolution deliberately omitted this language, despite this issue being consistently raised by other States throughout the negotiations.

A wholly inappropriate procedural tactic was used by some states to block discussion of a proposed amendment that would have restored the “various forms” language.

Efforts to ensure that the resolution clearly acknowledged and addressed the fact that the family is also a setting in which human rights abuses sometimes take place were partially successful.

The Panel topic will be “on the protection of the family and its members to address the implementation of States’ obligations under relevant provisions of international human rights law and to discuss challenges and best practices in this regard” (emphasis added).

The resolution reaffirms “that States have the primary responsibility to promote and protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all human beings, including women, children and older persons”. Unfortunately, however, the text of the resolution still does not give enough emphasis to this important aspect.

The organizations affirm that they will continue to insist on recognition that various forms of the family exist, and that individuals should not be discriminated against as a result of the form of family to which they happen to belong.

States should not fail to promote and protect the rights of persons because they belong to particular forms of family.

The organizations will continue to insist that the promotion and protection of the human rights of individuals within all families must be of the paramount importance to the UN Human Rights Council.

The joint statement may be downloaded in PDF here: HRC26-Joint statement family resolution-Advocacy-Position paper-2014

 

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