International Commission of Jurists
On Video: Judicial Accountability: 2015 Geneva Forum of Judges & Lawyers

On Video: Judicial Accountability: 2015 Geneva Forum of Judges & Lawyers

Dec 16, 2015 | Events, News, Video clips

More than 40 senior judges and lawyers from all parts of the world have made an important contribution to efforts to hold judges accountable for involvement in human rights violations and judicial corruption, by participating in the sixth annual ICJ Geneva Forum of Judges & Lawyers.

The Geneva Forum is organized annually by the ICJ’s Centre for Independence of Judges & Lawyers (CIJL) and brings together judges, lawyers and prosecutors from around the world, together with UN officials and representatives from international professional associations of legal professionals, as well as academics and other experts.

This year’s Geneva Forum (14-15 December) formed part of a larger CIJL project to promote judicial accountability, through sharing of knowledge about relevant international standards and international and national good practices, between the judiciary, other legal actors, and governments and civil society around the world.

The focus of the project is on judicial involvement in human rights violations such as unjust executions, prolonged arbitrary detention including imprisonment after deliberately unfair trials, judges providing impunity to perpetrators or enforced disappearance and torture, as well as judicial corruption that leads to human rights violations.

Victims of such violations have the right to remedy and reparation, including in relation to the role of judges, and society as a whole should be able to be confident that those responsible for such judicial misconduct will be held to account.

The two days of intense and detailed discussion and debate, at times practical and at times passionate, identified wide areas of agreement amongst participants, as well as areas of divergence and questions requiring further study and deliberation. Topics covered included:

  • the composition and character of accountability bodies (and particularly, the importance of judge-led processes that at the same time may benefit from involvement of representation of the legal profession, legal academia, and general public – while excluding undue influence from the Executive or Legislative branches of government);
  • the practicalities of bringing criminal proceedings against judges;
  • the role of national, regional and international professional associations;
  • possible options in situations of transition to democracy where the judiciary on the whole may have been an instrument of repression of the prior regime, or situations of pervasive corruption, or conflict or post-conflict situations;
  •  particular considerations in relation to judicial accountability in developing countries;
  • the powers and methods for gathering of evidence of judicial misconduct;
  • the rights of individual judges and of alleged victims of judicial misconduct;
  • the role of publicity and transparency in judicial accountability processes;
  • the inclusion of safeguards against the abuse of judicial accountability mechanisms for ulterior motives, including political interference that undermines the independence of the judiciary;
  • and practical means for ensuring that mechanisms and procedures, once established, operate effectively and fairly in practice.

The Forum follows a smaller expert consultation meeting convened in Tunisia in October focussing on judicial accountability in developing countries where, it is widely recognized, the negative impacts of corruption on human rights are deepest and most widespread. A report of the Tunis consultation is available here.

The Geneva Forum and Tunisia consultation are an opportunity for direct sharing of experience and expertise between practitioners, strengthening their capacity to carry out effective judicial accountability work in their own regional and national contexts, and to further disseminate this knowledge to others.

It is also an opportunity to discuss possible global strategies for promoting more effective and fair judicial accountability mechanisms and procedures.

The exchanges between leading judges and lawyers at the Geneva Forum and Tunis consultation will also directly feed into an ICJ Practitioners Guide on Judicial Accountability, with global legal, policy and practical guidance, to be published in June 2016. (Update 7 June 2016 – the Guide has now been published and is available here.)

The Practitioners Guide will be printed, published electronically, and distributed as a foundation for subsequent work by the ICJ and others at the national and regional level, from 2016 onwards, including in development-assistance recipient countries. It will join a series of Practitioners Guides published by the ICJ (nine to date, no. 10 and 11 to be published very soon), which have proved to be leading reference guides and training materials in the field of legal protection of human rights and the rule of law.

The developing countries consultation in Tunisia, and participation of practitioners from developing countries in the global Geneva Forum, will help to ensure that the Practitioners Guide is relevant to and has impact in ODA recipient countries.

The ultimate aim of the work of the CIJL, including the 2015 Geneva Forum on judicial accountability and the eventual Practitioners Guide, is to improve access to independent and impartial justice for victims of human rights violations, corruption and similar abuses, including when the judiciary itself has been involved in the wrongdoing.

The 2015 Geneva Forum, and the earlier Tunisia consultation, have been made possible with the support of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland. The ICJ is also grateful for the assistance of the Geneva Welcome Centre (CAGI).

The list of participants to this year’s Geneva Forum is available here: Participants list (public)

The report of the Tunis consultation is available here: Universal-Tunis Consultation-Publications-Seminar and Conference Report-2016-ENG

Information about previous years’ events and publications is available here: Geneva Forum Homepage

A 2000 CIJL Yearbook focussing on Judicial Corruption is available here: 2000 CIJL Yearbook Judicial Corruption

Voices from the Geneva Forum:

Event: children’s rights and business – the role of States

Event: children’s rights and business – the role of States

Sep 15, 2015 | Events, News

Organized by UNICEF and the ICJ, this side event takes place on Thursday 17 September 2015, from 12:00-14:00, Room XXVII, Palais des Nations, Geneva. 

More than ever before, business enterprises have an impact on children’s lives.

Children are consumers of businesses’ products and services, workers in their factories and fields, family members of their employees,  and residents of the communities  that host their operations.

Some of these interactions can benefit children. Companies have, for instance, created new technologies that enrich children’s education, enhance medical care, and connect families around the world.

Yet at the same time, businesses can also have detrimental impacts.

Companies can make and sell unhealthy and unsafe goods to children, pollute the environments  in which children live and play, and expose them to serious dangers including in the workplace.

As children are still growing and developing, they are especially vulnerable to negative business  impacts  and can be severely  and permanently  affected  by infringements  of their rights.

Child consumers can be more easily convinced to buy and use inappropriate or  unsuitable  products,  and  children  are  much  more  susceptible  than  adults  to  the harmful  physical  effects  of  toxic  chemicals,  manual  labour  and  poor  diets.

Young workers  can  never  fully  make  up  for  time  spent  out  of  education,   and  missed opportunities are rarely restored.

Many  of these  impacts  remain  unnoticed,  and businesses  rarely  involve  or seek  the input  of  children  on  decisions  that  will  profoundly  affect  them.

Children  may  not understand  that  their  rights  are  in  jeopardy,  and,  even  when  they  do,  often  face tremendous  challenges  in making  their voices  heard.

All too frequently,  child victims lack the confidence, resources and legal authority to demand accountability  from those who violate their rights.

For these reasons, it is imperative that governments take action to protect and promote children’s  rights  in  the  context  of  business  operations.

In  February  2013,  the  UN Committee   on  the  Rights  of  the  Child  adopted  General  Comment  16  on  State obligations  regarding  the impact of the business  sector on children’s  rights to assist States  to  ensure  that  businesses   respect  children’s   rights  as  envisioned   in  the Convention  on  the  Rights  of the  Child.

The  ICJ  and  UNICEF,  at the  request  of the Committee,  have  elaborated  a Guide  to offer  to States  practical  examples  and  best practices on how to protect and ensure the realization  of the rights of the child in the context of business operations.

 

UN: ICJ welcomes principles on challenging detention, and report on forced labour in supply chains

UN: ICJ welcomes principles on challenging detention, and report on forced labour in supply chains

Sep 15, 2015 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions

The ICJ today made an oral statement at the UN Human Rights Council, welcoming the presentation of UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the right to challenge detention, and a report on forced labour and slavery in supply chains.

The statement was made during an Interactive Dialogue with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery.

The ICJ said that the implementation of the Basic Principles and Guidelines would help prevent governments from depriving people of liberty solely for exercising freedoms of opinion and expression; peaceful assembly and association; thought, conscience and religion; or on the basis of discrimination. Such violations are often achieved by circumventing or suspending essential legal procedural protections such as habeas corpus.

The ICJ noted that the right to challenge detention is also a key safeguard against incommunicado or secret detention, enforced disappearance, and torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

The ICJ welcomed the attention the Working Group has given to the challenging contexts of counter-terrorism and armed conflicts, where such concerns are particularly acute.

The ICJ also welcomed the report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, addressing the issue of modern slavery and forced labour in supply chains, and the Rapporteur’s emphasis on the right to an effective remedy. In addition to the international legal and policy frameworks and continuing efforts by States and businesses outlined in the report, the ICJ noted that UN treaty-bodies have produced useful guidance and recommendations, such as the General Comment adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2013, on State obligations regarding the impact of the business sector on children’s rights.

The full statement may be downloaded in PDF format here: UN-Advocacy-Oral statementWGADandSRslavery-2015
Earlier in the week, the ICJ published a legal commentary on certain aspects of the Principles and Guidelines, related to situations of armed conflict. The commentary is available here.

Translate »