Jul 1, 2015 | Advocacy
Joint statement by the ICJ and Amnesty International after a group of States, led by Egypt, proposed a resolution on “protection of the family” at the ongoing 29th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council.
Bangladesh, Belarus, China, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, El Salvador, Mauritania, Morocco, Qatar, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia have submitted a seemingly innocuous draft resolution (A/HRC/29/L.25) that, in fact, underhandedly seeks to divert the Council from its institutional mandate focused on the effective promotion and protection of the human rights of the individuals towards protecting the purported rights of a social institution, namely, “the family”.
The full statement can be downloaded here: Universal-ICJ+AI statement on protection of the family-Advocacy-2015-ENG (in PDF)
Jun 19, 2015 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
Today, the ICJ made a submission to the Human Rights Council’s Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review in advance of the Human Rights Council’s review of Singapore.
In its submission, the ICJ expressed concern about the following:
(1) corporal punishment;
(2) the death penalty;
(3) the continued criminalization of consensual same-sex relations;
(4) corporate accountability for companies registered in Singapore; and
(5) international human rights instruments and mechanisms.
A copy of the submission can be found here:
Singapore-ICJ UPR-Advocacy-non legal submission-2015-ENG
Jun 18, 2015 | News
Mrs Gabriela Knaul (Brazil) today participated in an Interactive Dialogue with the Human Rights Council. Topics included children in the justice system, her visits to Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Tunisia and Portugal, and the need more generally for better implementation of relevant UN standards.
Mrs Knaul’s appearance before the Human Rights Council will be her last before her term in the mandate comes to an end in the coming months.
Her successor as UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges & lawyers is to be appointed at the end of the Council session, on 3 July 2015.
Following an initial presentation by the Special Rapporteur, the concerned countries responded, followed by discussion by other states, and civil society.
Jun 9, 2015 | News
The ICJ today organized a diplomatic dialogue, in advance of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), with ambassadors and high-level diplomatic representatives, to share the state of human rights in Myanmar.
May 30, 2015 | Advocacy, Legal submissions
This paper was prepared by the ICJ for the first session of the Open Ended Intergovernmental working Group on a Legally Binding Instrument on TNCs and other business enterprises, argues that all conduct by all types of business enterprises, whether local or transnational, should be addressed in the legally binding instrument.
The paper argues that business enterprises that do not have any or any significant transnational operations no doubt are capable of and in many instances have been responsible for human rights abuses no less serious in scale or severity than those of transnational businesses. The victims of human rights abuses committed directly or indirectly by businesses are unlikely to distinguish whether the business enterprise that causes them harm has transnational ownership or operations; nor are victims likely to excuse abuses they suffer from a “local” business simply because the entity lacks a transnational element.
Therefore, in principle all conduct by all types of business enterprises, whether local or transnational, shall be addressed in the legally Binding instrument. The footnote in the preamble should not be interpreted as limiting in any way the scope of possible discussions in the Intergovernmental Working Group or any analysis or recommendations that may be reported back to the Council on a future treaty.
Global-Report-ScopeBusinessTreaty-2015
