Aug 2, 2014 | Multimedia items, News, Video clips
Women judges, lawyers and human rights defenders from across Africa participated in ICJ Colloquia on “Women Lawyers and Human Rights Defenders: Challenges and Opportunities” on 30 and 31 July in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.
The colloquia were hosted in collaboration and partnership with the Gender Committee of the SADC Lawyers Association, the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.
It enabled over 40 women lawyers, human rights defenders and judges to come together to identify the challenges faced by women lawyers and human rights defenders and elaborate action steps.
Discussions also addressed the role of the judiciary in advancing gender equality, women’s access to justice and protection of women human rights defenders.
The Colloquia are part of an ICJ multi-year initiative on women judges, lawyers and human rights defenders as agents of change.
Interviews:
Justice Martha Koome (Kenya)
Justice Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza (Uganda)
Doo Aphane (Swaziland)
Jane Serwanga (Kenya)
Jul 2, 2014 | Advocacy, Position papers
The ICJ and other NGOs have issued a joint statement urging the UN Human Rights Council to ensure that a discussion of “protection of the family” in September will reflect diversity and focus on human rights.
The ICJ is concerned, due to the way the resolution to establish the Panel discussion has been pursued, that some States will seek to exploit it as a vehicle for promoting a narrow, exclusionary and patriarchal concept of “the family” that denies equal protection to the human rights of individuals who belong to the various and diverse forms of family that exist across the globe.
Previous UN resolutions on the family include language, agreed by all States, that recognized that “various forms of the family exist”. The authors of the resolution deliberately omitted this language, despite this issue being consistently raised by other States throughout the negotiations.
A wholly inappropriate procedural tactic was used by some states to block discussion of a proposed amendment that would have restored the “various forms” language.
Efforts to ensure that the resolution clearly acknowledged and addressed the fact that the family is also a setting in which human rights abuses sometimes take place were partially successful.
The Panel topic will be “on the protection of the family and its members to address the implementation of States’ obligations under relevant provisions of international human rights law and to discuss challenges and best practices in this regard” (emphasis added).
The resolution reaffirms “that States have the primary responsibility to promote and protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all human beings, including women, children and older persons”. Unfortunately, however, the text of the resolution still does not give enough emphasis to this important aspect.
The organizations affirm that they will continue to insist on recognition that various forms of the family exist, and that individuals should not be discriminated against as a result of the form of family to which they happen to belong.
States should not fail to promote and protect the rights of persons because they belong to particular forms of family.
The organizations will continue to insist that the promotion and protection of the human rights of individuals within all families must be of the paramount importance to the UN Human Rights Council.
The joint statement may be downloaded in PDF here: HRC26-Joint statement family resolution-Advocacy-Position paper-2014
Jun 27, 2014 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
The ICJ and other civil society organizations highlighted progress in relation to accountability in the field of business and human rights, together with some continuing concerns, and unacceptable procedural tactics including in relation to a resolution on “protection of the family”.
Jun 11, 2014 | Events
The ICJ’s Senior Legal Adviser on women’s human rights participated in a panel discussion on ‘Gains, gaps and challenges in addressing violence against women’, convened on 10 June 2014 in the margins of the Human Rights Council’s 26th regular session in Geneva.
The event was co-sponsored by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Permanent Missions of Canada and Chile and was moderated by Jane Connors, Chief of the OHCHR Special Procedures Branch. Panelists included Rashida Manjoo, Special Rapporteur on violence against women; Her Excellency Elisa Goldberg, Ambassador of Canada; Her Excellency Marta Maurás Peréz, Ambassador of Chile; and Leah Hoctor, ICJ Senior Legal Adviser.
The ICJ’s intervention focussed on remaining challenges, including the lack of prompt and effective investigations into allegations of violence against women (VAW); systemic failures in some States’ implementation of their due diligence obligations; and a series of disconnects at the international level pertaining to the link between VAW and other forms of discrimination and rights violations that women face, the lack of a holistic conceptualisation and treatment of VAW, and the insufficient integration of legal and normative progress in the discussions and approach of international fora.
Apr 26, 2014 | News
The ICJ recently organized a Legal Seminar for Thai Lawyers and Women Human Rights Defenders on the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women.
On 25 April 2014 Thai lawyers and human rights defenders participated in a legal seminar on using international complaints mechanisms to advance women’s access to justice and human rights protection.
The ICJ seminar enabled global experts to provide local actors with practical guidance and strategic advice on using the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
The Protocol, which was ratified by Thailand in 2004, allows women who believe their rights under CEDAW have been violated, to submit a complaint to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and seek the Committee’s deliberation and views on the matter.
The legal seminar was part of ongoing ICJ work to empower women lawyers and human rights defenders and advance women’s access to justice in Thailand.
