Jun 24, 2015 | News
The workshop took place from 22-24 June in Victoria Falls and had a special focus on children’s rights as a particularly vulnerable group.
Its primary objective was to create a pool of jurists and activists with the knowledge and ability to undertake strategic litigation before national or regional courts in the interest of victims of human rights abuse by business enterprises in the Southern/Eastern Africa region.
To this end the meeting brought together legal practitioners and Human Rights Defenders involved in human rights legal accountability of business enterprises.
This workshop gathered together a selected group of human rights advocates from Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania working on cases relating to business’ human rights abuse.
In East and Southern African countries mining represents a significant part of the national economies and annual GDP.
Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique have seen the inflowing investments grow in recent years, but it is not clear that this trend has meant improvements in the realization of human rights, especially economic and social rights.
Child labour is endemic, and its occurrence in tobacco plantations subject children to additional hazards to their health and wellbeing.
Mining and oil exploration creates problems to local communities who are not properly consulted or benefit from the activity and usually bear the brunt of environmental degradation and pollution associated with those extractive industries.
Business enterprises are in many instances complicit with State’s violations of human rights.
The meeting also sought to provide legal and other tools to community representatives and litigators who want to start strategic litigation in the public interest.
This flows from the realisation that effective remedy and reparation for victims of business human rights abuses, especially in a transnational context, remains elusive as ever and confronts a series of legal and procedural obstacles.
Access to effective remedy and justice is a priority objective in the context of work relating to the human rights responsibilities of business enterprises.
Dec 5, 2014 | Multimedia items, News, Video clips
Jacqueline Dugard, Hina Jilani, Rodrigo Uprimny Yepes, Gilles Badet, Alejandra Ancheita and Harsh Mander talk about their experience and the situation of economic, social and cultural rights in their respective countries.
These prominent participants in ICJ’s Geneva Forum 2014 give their views on judicial protection of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) as well as on what needs to be changed to address obstacles to guarantee an effective remedy for victims of violations of their socio-economic rights.
They also tell about the main opportunities and key challenges for the realization of ESCR in their respective countries.
The 2014 Geneva Forum of Judges and Lawyers is a joint initiative of the ICJ Center for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers (CIJL) and the ICJ Programme on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
It has been made possible with the support of the République et Canton de Genève, the Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations in Geneva, and the Taipei Bar Association.
Aug 27, 2014 | News
The ICJ is delighted to announce five new Commissioners: Professor Kyong-Wahn Ahn (Republic of Korea), Justice Adolfo Azcuna (Philippines), Professor Miguel Carbonell (Mexico), Justice Yvonne Mokgoro (South Africa) and Justice Ajit Parkash Shah (India).
Mar 27, 2014 | Events, News, Publications, Reports, Seminar and conference reports
The ICJ hosted over 40 human rights defenders (HRDs) from Southern, Eastern and Western Africa to deliberate on strategies for enhancing the protection of human rights and human rights defenders.
The event took place on 27-28 March 2014 in Tswane, Pretoria.
Several African dignitaries attended the strategy session, including various independent experts from the African Union and United Nations focusing on protection and promotion of the work of human rights defenders.
This reflection session came in the wake of the increased sophistication of acts that undermine the independent, safe and secure operation of human rights defenders in Africa.
These acts include restrictive and punitive legislative enactments, in countries such as Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya, and extra judicial killings and enforced disappearances in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and South Sudan.
Other acts undermining the work and security of human rights defenders include the prohibition of access to funding; defamatory labeling of HRDs as “spies”, “unpatriotic”, “traitors”, and “foreign agents”; and the passing of laws criminalizing homosexuality.
The Universally acclaimed Declaration on Human Rights Defenders has recorded a greater number of breaches in recent times than before.
There is an increasing need for defenders to identify and reflect on opportunities to strengthen their collective responses and to provide rapid in-country and regional support and solidarity that nurtures a spirit of resilience, collectiveness and camaraderie within universally accepted norms of the defence of human rights.
Contact
Arnold Tsunga, Director, ICJ Africa Regional Programme, Arnold.tsunga(a)icj.org, +27731318411, or
Martin Okumu-Masiga, Deputy Director, ICJ Afria Regional Programme, Martin.okumu-masiga(a)icj.org, +27110248268 (full text in PDF)
Southern Africa-Strategic Session rapide response-Publications-Workshop report-2015-ENG (full text in PDF)
Dec 6, 2013 | News
The ICJ mourns with the rest of the world the passing on of former President Nelson Mandela.
He was a beacon of hope, justice and peace in the world and will be sorely missed. His life will remain a source of inspiration for our work in pursuit of justice, peace, tolerance and respect for human rights in the world.
