Jan 1, 2004 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
Racial discrimination remains a pervasive problem in criminal justice systems. While some countries are starting to recognize the deeply rooted nature of the phenomenon and to compile date in order to counter it, there is still little awareness for it in many countries.
Also, Government reports are often incomplete.
In order to give guidance to States on the issue, a General Recommendation by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is timely and useful.
This paper seeks to gather some ideas of recommendations from national reports, reports of the UN Special Rapporteurs and experts, NGO reports and other material. The recommendations are organized according to the different stages of the criminal justice system: police conduct, courts and prisons. It also gives some elements to be taken into account in more structural manner: access to justice, methods of structural, institutional change and data collection.
CERD Racial discrimination administration of justice-recommendations-eng (full text in English, PDF)
Dec 19, 2003 | Advocacy, Position papers
The 60th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission will meet between 15 March and April 23 2004. As in the previous years, the ICJ will continue to be active.
Nov 19, 2003 | News
Joaquin Ruiz-Giménez, a leading Spanish jurist active in protecting the rights of children and victims of political persecution, was elected President Thursday of the ICJ.
Oct 31, 2003 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
A group of international Non-Governmental Organizations has launched a Joint Declaration calling on the United Nations to monitor the impact on human rights of the fight against terrorism.
Practices such as torture, detention without judicial review, unfair trial, criminalisation of acts in exercise of fundamental rights, and suppression of the right to association have been sharply on the rise as a result of measures taken in the fight against terrorism.
The Declaration calls on the UN Commission on Human Rights at its 60th session in March/April 2004 to establish as a matter of utmost priority an independent mechanism on the question of human rights and counter-terrorism.
Joint declaration on the need for an international mechanism to monitor human rights and counter-terrorism [full text, PDF]
