Nov 5, 2013 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
The ICJ has called on States that are candidates for membership to the UN Human Rights Council to do more to respect human rights at home and at the international level.
On 12 November, the United Nations General Assembly will elect 14 new members to the Human Rights Council.
The ICJ added its name to a joint letter, delivered by International Service for Human Rights on behalf of 40 NGOs from all regions of the world, emphasising the need for candidate states to uphold the highest standards of respect for human rights, the fullest cooperation with the Human Rights Council, and to refrain from impeding the access of individuals and civil society to international human rights mechanisms.
HRC-GAElections-JointNGOLetter-NonLegalSubmission-2013 (download joint open letter in PDF)
Aug 22, 2013 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
With other nongovernmental organizations, the ICJ calls on the Human Rights Council to select candidates for Special Procedure mandates on the basis of technical, professional and other objective requirements.
Ahead of the 24th session of the Human Rights Council (9 to 27 September 2013), several NGOs, including the ICJ, today joined in submitting written statements to the UN concerning the selection of candidates for membership in the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances and for the mandate-holder of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders. The statements identify a checklist intended as an interpretive aid for the selection of candidates based on qualifications and skills; relevant expertise; established competence; and flexibility and availability of time.
HRC24-JointWrittenStatement-SelectionCriteriaWGAD-NonLegalSubmission-2013 (download full statement concerning selection criteria for the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention)
HRC24-JointWrittenStatement-SelectionCriteriaWGEID-NonLegalSubmission-2013 (download full statement concerning selection criteria for the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances)
HRC24-JointWrittenStatement-SelectionCriteriaSRHRDs-NonLegalSubmission-2013 (download full statement concerning selection criteria for the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders)
May 7, 2013 | Advocacy, Legal submissions
The ICJ today submitted to the United Nations a written statement concerning corporate complicity in human rights abuses and access to justice for victims of such abuses.
The statement is made ahead of the UN Human Rights Council’s 23rd session (27 May to 14 June 2013) and comments on a report of the Council’s Working Group on human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises.
Setting out issues concerning obstacles to justice for victims of human rights abuses by business enterprises, the ICJ calls on the Working Group to take various steps to address such issues, including by:
- Exploring the further development of international standards;
- Raising specific allegations of corporate abuse with relevant State authorities and business enterprises; and
- Addressing more clearly the issue of access to justice in cases of corporate complicity.
HRC23-Item3-WGBHR-WrittenStatement-LegalSubmission-2013 (download statement in PDF)
May 3, 2013 | Advocacy, News
Today, the ICJ sent a letter to the Tunisian Minister of Interior and the Minister of Justice requesting them to take immediate action in order to ensure the security and physical integrity of Justice Kalthoum Kennou.
Justice Kalthoum Kennou is a Tunisian judge on the Court of Cassation, President of the Tunisian Association of Magistrates, and ICJ Commissioner.
This call comes as Justice Kennou received a letter containing serious death threats, demanding her withdrawal from the judiciary. Justice Kennou is active in the establishment of an independent judiciary and the protection of human rights.
The ICJ strongly condemns these threats and all acts of intimidation against the judiciary and human rights defenders in Tunisia, and calls on the Tunisian authorities to initiate the necessary investigations and inquiries in order to find, prosecute, and punish the individuals behind these brutal threats.
Tunisia-Lettre Kalthoum Kennou – MoI-advocacy-2013 (full text in pdf)
Apr 23, 2013 | Advocacy, Cases, Legal submissions
The ICJ and Amnesty International presented a third party intervention in the case Abu Zubaydah v. Lithuania before the European Court of Human Rights.
In the third party intervention, the ICJ and AI outlined developments on the knowledge imputable to Contracting Parties at relevant times; on the obligations attached to principle of non-refoulement; on the duty to investigate credible allegations of human rights violations and other procedural obligations; and on the human rights violations that detainees previously held in the USA’s secret detention and rendition programmes are currently enduring.
Abu_Zubaydah_v_Lithuania-ICJAIJointSubmission-ECtHR-final (download the third party intervention)
Apr 20, 2013 | Advocacy, News, Non-legal submissions
The ICJ today condemned the execution by the Government of Taiwan of six prisoners, convicted on charges of murder, on 19 April 2013. It follows the earlier execution of six convicted persons in December 2012.
Twenty-one executions have been carried out in Taiwan since April 2010, shattering a de facto moratorium of the death penalty that had been respected by the Government since December 2005.
“The Government of Taiwan’s execution of 12 people in the last six months constitutes a serious and unacceptable assault on the right to life and human dignity”, said Alex Conte, Director of the ICJ International Law & Protection Programmes. “These executions also place Taiwan at odds with the international community, which has adopted with increasingly large majorities since December 2007 the UN General Assembly resolutions calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions”, Conte added.
This new round of executions are especially lamentable in light of the encouraging step recently taken by the country to invite an international group of experts to review the measures adopted by the Government to promote and protect human rights. The recommendations to the Government of Taiwan, formulated by those experts, and welcomed by the ICJ and other rights groups, included intensifying efforts towards the abolition of capital punishment and the recommendation that Taiwan “as a first and decisive step, immediately introduces a moratorium on executions in accordance with the respective resolutions of the UN General Assembly”.
The ICJ believes that the use of the death penalty constitutes a violation of the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.
ICJ and other rights groups encourage Taiwan on domestic implementation of human rights (see ICJ and other rights groups’ statement on Taiwan’s human rights review process)
