Dec 2, 2016 | Agendas, Events, News
Today, the ICJ and Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna are holding a training for lawyers on the rights of migrant children and on accessing international human rights mechanisms in Pisa (Italy).
The training aims to support the strategic use of national and international mechanisms to foster migrant children’s access to justice. The training will take place over the course of two days from 2-3 December 2016.
The training will focus on accessing the international mechanisms in order to protect and promote the rights of migrant children, the child’s right to family life and the best interests of the child principle. A moot court exercise will be held on the second day of the training.
Trainers include experts from the ICJ and Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, the Italian Court of Cassation and the University of Milan.
The training is based on draft training materials prepared by the ICJ (to be published in the second half of 2017) and the ICJ Practitioners Guide no. 6: Migration and International Human Rights Law.
It is organized as part of the FAIR project co-funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Union and OSIFE.
Download the agenda in Italian here:
italy-rights-migrant-children-training-agenda-2016-ita
Nov 18, 2016 | Agendas, Events, News
Today, the ICJ holds a round table discussion in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on “Comparative Perspectives on Judicial Ethics”.
The event takes place as part of the Central Asian Forum Expert Forum organized by the Organisation for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE) in Tashkent this year.
International standards, and national standards of judicial ethics in Uzbekistan in other countries will be discussed at the event.
Participants will discuss questions of judicial independence, impartiality and accountability and disciplinary mechanisms.
Speakers at the event include Justice Ketil Lund (photo), an ICJ Commissioner and a former judge of the Supreme Court of Norway, Justice Tatiana Andreyeva, professor of law and a former Judge of the High Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation, as well as a representative of the Uzbekistan judiciary.
Legal practitioners and experts from across the Central Asian region will attend the event.
uzbekistan-side-event-tashkent-events-agenda-2016-rus (Agenda in Russian, PDF)
Nov 17, 2016 | Events, Multimedia items, News, Video clips
The 7th annual Geneva Forum of Judges & Lawyers, 17-18 November 2016, brought together judges, lawyers, and refugee and migration experts from around the world, as well as UN agencies to discuss the role of judges and lawyers in situations of large-scale movement of refugees and migrants.
Participants reflected on practical, policy, and legal challenges posed by contemporary movements of refugees and migrants, perceived as exceptional in terms of their scale and speed. Particular situations to be considered include those in Europe (with people coming primarily from and through North Africa and the Middle East, including from Syria, Eritrea, Iraq and Afghanistan); in the Americas (including people coming to the United States of America from Central and South America); in Asia (including in relation to the Rohingya across Southeast Asia, and in relation to practices involving Australia and the Pacific); and within and from parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
In most of these situations, the legal protections available and the respective roles of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government in securing these protections has been a matter of debate.
Authorities world-wide have faced the challenge of ensuring that in all circumstances people have access to fair and effective procedures in relation to key decisions about their rights and interests, such as: determinations of a person’s entitlement to international protection, including determinations as to refugee status; decisions about detention or criminal proceedings based on one’s entry or presence in the country; and decisions about expulsion or onward transfer.
In some cases governments have departed radically from ordinary procedures. The framework of “crisis” or “emergency” has been increasingly invoked, sometimes to reduce judicial protections and guarantees and access to justice.
Forum participants were invited to analyze relevant legal and policy frameworks and practices at the national, regional and universal levels, and to make recommendations about the particular role of judges and lawyers in such situations, including relative to the executive and legislative branches of government.
During the Forum, the forty distinguished judges and lawyers from around the world reaffirmed the essential role of judges and lawyers in securing the rule of law and human rights in relation to large movements of refugees and migrants.
The Forum concluded with substantial agreement and reaffirmation of the essential role that judges and lawyers must be enabled to play, and must fulfil in practice, if the rights of refugees and migrants and the rule of law are to be secured, including in the context of large movements.
Participants exchanged challenges and solutions, and deliberated on a wide range of issues, including:
- on methods for best assessing evidence and credibility;
- on means for overcoming the legal, policy, and practical challenges when judges and lawyers face large numbers of claims and cases;
- on reforms to better enable immigration judges to meet basic standards of independence and impartiality;
- on the need for judiciaries and legal professions to ensure practitioners receive appropriate training and better access to information about international standards and reliable information about country situations;
- on the importance of effective access to competent legal advice and representation, including free of charge when necessary, for refugees and migrants to be able to exercise their rights and for judges to be able to decide cases in an efficient and just manner;
- on ways of supporting judges who courageously exercise their independence to uphold the rule of law and human rights, including in the face of interference or reprisal from the executive or legislative branches of government, or intense media criticism or majoritarian pressure;
- on ensuring that refugees and migrants who are victims of crime or victims of human rights violations are able to have effective access to justice and effective remedy, without discrimination arising from their status;
- on the importance of ensuring that legal processes are sensitive to the particular situation of women and children migrants, and migrants in detention.
The main output of the Forum, published in May 2017, is the ICJ Principles on the role of judges and lawyers in relation to refugees and migrants.
The Principles complement ICJ’s 2011 (updated 2014) Practitioners’ Guide No 6 on Migration and International Human Rights Law, and Practitioners Guide No 11 on Refugee Status Claims Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (2016).
The 2016 Geneva Forum of Judges & Lawyers was made possible with the support of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, Switzerland.
The ICJ is also grateful to the Swiss Confederation, and the Centre d’Accueil Genève Internationale (CAGI), for their in-kind support.
The Programme for the 2016 Forum can be downloaded in PDF format here:
en-programme-2016gf-09-11-2016
esp-programme-2016gf-09-11-2016
The List of Participants can be downloaded in PDF format here: participants-2016gf-09-11-2016
Information about the Geneva Forum from past years is available by clicking here.
The final output of the 2015 Geneva Forum was the publication of ICJ Practitioners Guide No. 13, on Judicial Accountability, available in PDF format by clicking here.
For further details, please contact Matt Pollard, senior legal adviser, matt.pollard(a)icj.org
Voices from the Geneva Forum 2016: Sanji Monageng
Voices from the Geneva Forum 2016: Guy Goodwin-Gill
Voices from the Geneva Forum 2016: Maya Sahli-Fahdel (in French)
Voices from the Geneva Forum 2016: Mónica Oehler Toca (in Spanish)
Information about related ICJ work on refugees and migrants can be accessed by clicking the links below:
ICJ and others call on the EU to protect refugee and migrant children’s rights (November 2016)
Nov 11, 2016 | Agendas, Events
The ICJ and Foundation Raices are holding a training on the rights of migrant children and on accessing international human rights mechanisms from 11 to 12 November in Madrid (Spain).
The training aims to support the strategic use of national and international mechanisms to foster children’s access to justice.
The training will focus on accessing the international mechanisms in order to protect and promote the rights of migrant children, the child’s right to be heard and related procedural rights, the best interests of the child, age assessment and the presumption of minority.
Trainers will include representatives of the ICJ and Foundation Raices, as well as experts from the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Spanish Constitutional Court and the office of the Spanish Ombudsman.
The training is based on draft training materials prepared by the ICJ (to be published in the second half of 2017) and the ICJ Practitioners Guide no. 6: Migration and International Human Rights Law.
The training is organized as part of the FAIR project co-funded by the Justice and Equality Programme of the EU and OSIFE.
Download the agenda of the training here:
spain-fair-training-events-agenda-2016-eng (in PDF)
Oct 25, 2016 | Events
The ICJ convenes today a roundtable at the United Nations gathering several stakeholders to discuss on a possible future treaty on business and human rights.
Tuesday 25 October, 2016
13:00 to 15:00 hrs
Room XXVII- Palais des Nations
The second session of the Open Ended Intergovernmental Working Group to elaborate a legally binding instrument on Transnational Corporations and other business enterprises in relation to human rights, offers the opportunity to significantly advance the process of establishing an effective treaty that assist in preventing and addressing business related human rights abuses. Advancing the process will require stakeholders to reach a common platform of understanding on some core concepts and foundational elements before textual details can be elaborated and negotiated.
The objective of the roundtable is to assist in this process by creating a space for various stakeholders to address issues of importance for the treaty process from diverse points of view with the goal of enhancing mutual understanding among stakeholders of concepts and element that can serve as the basis for possible agreement for the future. This panel has a multistakeholder nature with a view to create a space of dialogue and understanding among the most important actors of the process.
Moderator:
Mr Ian Seiderman, Legal and Policy Director, International Commission of Jurists
Speakers:
Mr Ariel Meyerstein- United States Council of International Business, representing the International Organization of Employers
Mrs Makbule Sahan, Legal Advisor, International Trade Union Confederation
Prof Douglas Cassel, School of Law, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, United States
Prof Surya Deva, member of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights
Mr Humberto Cantú Rivera, Researcher at University of Panthéon-Assas, Paris II
Mrs Debbie Stothard, Secretary-General, International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH)
icj-side-event-2nd-session-flyer (download the flyer)
Oct 10, 2016 | Events, News
The ICJ, OSCE and Group 484 are holding a training on migration and international human rights law starting on From 10 to 13 October in Zlatibor (Serbia).
The training has been organised by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Serbian NGO “Group 484” and will be given by the International Commission of Jurists.
It will focus on international protection of migrants and asylum seekers, access to territory and asylum and the principle of non-refoulement, in light of the current migrants and refugee crisis and drawing from the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, of the UN human rights systems and from EU law.
The training will be centred on the ICJ Practitioners Guide no. 6: Migration and International Human Rights Law.
serbia-jointtrainingmigrationhr-events-2016-eng (download the agenda)
