Mar 8, 2020 | News
The ICJ commemorates International Women’s Day by calling on States all over the world to take decisive steps to abolish or amend laws, policies and practices that discriminate against women and girls, including those belonging to Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC) minorities.
“All over the world, we are facing increasing attacks on the rule of law, which intensify existing inequalities resulting in compounded and intersecting forms of discrimination against women and girls, especially women from SOGIESC minorities,” said Emerlynne Gil, ICJ’s global focal point on gender.
The ICJ also calls on frontline justice actors, such as judges, lawyers and law enforcement officers, to take proactive steps in eliminating gender discriminatory practices in their work to further enhance access to justice for women.
Such action includes an open and inclusive discourse on regressive interpretations of religious and customary laws that discriminate against women.
The ICJ also urges States to acknowledge the diverse voices of women in this discourse, including those of women who belong to SOGIESC minorities.
“Women and girls, including those from SOGIESC minorities, are at a heightened risk of human rights abuses, most especially because a greater number among them is now living in poverty and is unable to access information about their rights, as well as justice for the violations they suffer,” added Emerlynne Gil.
.International Women’s Day is a symbolic acknowledgement of women’s struggle for gender equality in all spheres of life.
While celebrating the recognition of women’s legal rights and entitlements, the ICJ also notes with deep concern the growing trend around the world to push back on these advances in a manner that fundamentally violates the rights of women.
In 2019, the ICJ adopted the Tunis Declaration on Reinforcing the Rule of Law and Human Rights (Tunis Declaration), wherein it highlighted how “culture, tradition, or religion are being used to justify laws, policies, and practices that discriminate against women and girls”.
The proliferation of these discriminatory laws, policies and practices “come at a time when there is growing inequality, accelerating climate change, conflict, and large-scale displacement of people.”
Upholding cultural practices is often invoked as a convenient excuse to justify the continued existence of laws, policies, and practices that discriminate against women and girls, including those belonging to SOGIESC minorities.
While the ICJ affirms the importance of respecting cultural rights, these must be exercised in a manner consistent with core rule of law principles of non-discrimination, equality and equal protection of the law.
The ICJ notes that claims of cultural preservation are often based upon harmful gender stereotypes and deeply problematic patriarchal norms and attitudes that undergird the sanctification of discriminatory cultural, religious, traditional, and customary norms.
In the Tunis Declaration, the ICJ recognized “the persistent, deep entrenchment of patriarchal culture that perpetuates gender stereotypes in many national and international institutions, including those of the legal profession and judiciary.”
Harmful gender stereotypes, in turn, severely hamper women from enjoying their human rights and from equal access to justice, including for crimes of sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated against them.
Contact
Emerlynne Gil, ICJ Senior International Legal Adviser, email: emerlynne.gil(a)icj.org
Mar 5, 2020 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
The ICJ today expressed concern at violations of human rights perpetrated in the name of countering violent extremism, and at attempts by some States at the Human Rights Council to dilute its focus on human rights while countering terrorism and the human rights of victims of terrorism.
The statement, delivered during an interactive dialogue with the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, read as follows:
“The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) welcomes your report on “Human rights impact of policies and practices aimed at preventing and countering violent extremism” (A/HRC/43/46).
The ICJ shares concern at the growing range of measures that restrict human rights, adopted in the name of the opaque and contested concepts of countering or preventing violent extremism. At the Council, certain States push for agreed language on suppression of terrorism to be cut-and-pasted to apply to “violent extremism”, and then eventually to all “extremism” whether violent or not, without definitions. As your report documents, at the national level this translates into overbroad, unjustified, arbitrary, and discriminatory measures, with particular impacts on civil society, especially human rights defenders, and from a gender perspective.
We also share the view expressed at para 51 of your report, that the current draft report of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee on “the negative effects of terrorism on the enjoyment of human rights”, remains fundamentally flawed. Any discussion of “effects of terrorism” at the Council should exclusively focus on a human-rights based approach to victims of terrorism, consolidating work already undertaken by successive Special Rapporteurs and other UN and regional entities, as collected in a compilation published recently by the ICJ.[1] The Council must not allow its attention and limited resources to be diverted away from the human rights of victims of terrorism and protecting human rights while countering terrorism, to more diffuse questions of a macro-economic or budgetary character or duplicating work of other bodies.”
[1] See https://www.icj.org/victimsofterrorism2019/ and https://www.icj.org/icj-highlights-rights-of-victims-of-terrorism-to-un-delegations/
Feb 25, 2020 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
The ICJ today spoke at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, highlighting issues of access to justice for women in the context of religious and customary law.
The statement, delivered during a High Level Panel discussion commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women, read as follows:
“The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) welcomes this opportunity to celebrate the progress made in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action 25 years after its adoption and to address the remaining challenges to gender equality and women’s empowerment.
We have indeed seen an expansion in many countries of women’s legal entitlements and protection of their rights. However, there is also a growing trend to push these advances back and violate women’s human rights, invoking as justification religion, tradition, culture, and custom. This came out clearly when ICJ, UN Women and the OHCHR hosted a consultation for the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief last year, where women human rights defenders from all over Asia raised concerns about the resurgence of intersecting forms of discrimination by religion and culture based on patriarchal attitudes. They specifically narrated how women and girls were denied their sexual and reproductive rights.
Recalling the vision of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, we reiterate the obligation of States not to invoke, “any custom, tradition or religious consideration”, to avoid their obligations to combat gender-based violence and discrimination against women. The Human Rights Committee also provides that “State parties should ensure that traditional, historical, religious or cultural attitudes are not used to justify violations of women’s right to equality before the law and to equal enjoyment of [ICCPR] rights[1].”
We therefore urge the Council to foster an open and inclusive discourse with Member States on the regressive interpretations of religious and customary laws that discriminate against women, and to acknowledge the voices and the diversity of women in that process. We urge States to ensure the full implementation of the human rights of women as an inalienable part of all fundamental freedoms.”
[1] Para 5, CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.10
Feb 17, 2020 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
The ICJ has urged expert members of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee to focus on the most direct and acute human rights issues, including a human-rights based approach to victims of terrorism, as the Committee prepares a report on “effects of terrorism on all human rights”.
In an oral statement to the Advisory Committee’s ongoing 24th session in Geneva, the ICJ expressed grave concern about the content of the latest draft of the report, and the potential negative consequences for human rights protection of the report in its current form, and urged the Advisory Committee:
- To substantially revise and refocus the report to include a clear recommendation to the Council that the exclusive focus of the Council’s work should remain on the most acute issues from a human rights perspective: violations in countering terrorism and a human-rights based approach to victims of terrorism, along the lines already established by successive holders of the Special Rapporteur mandate.
- To recommend against the Council entering into more diffuse macroeconomic issues such as diverting foreign direct investment, reducing capital inflows, destroying infrastructure, limiting foreign trade, disturbing financial markets, and negatively affecting certain economic sectors and impeding economic growth.
- To avoid making recommendations that simply repeat already-existing obligations or commitments to counter terrorism under various UN or other instruments.
- To affirm that the existing and longstanding normative and institutional framework on counter-terrorism and human rights is already sufficient to address relevant impacts of terrorism from a human rights perspective.
Prior to the session, the ICJ together with other NGOs had filed a written statement alerting the Advisory Committee to the highly sensitive context into which its report would be delivered at the Council, and urging the Committee to guard against its work being instrumentalized by Egypt and other States who seek to distort, distract and divert the limited resources and attention of the Council and its Special Rapporteur, away from the longstanding focus, achieved by years of Mexican leadership with consensus support of the Council, on human rights in countering terrorism, and the human rights of victims of terrorism.
The Advisory Committee’s report was requested by a 2017 resolution led by Egypt, which was not a matter of consensus, and is being drafted by a former Ambassador of Egypt who is now a member of the Committee.
Earlier at the session, several States including the EU, Switzerland, and Mexico had expressed concern or otherwise questioned particular aspects of the current draft of the report, and urged the Committee to substantially review and revise the draft. Egypt, China, Russia and several other States expressed satisfaction with the draft and urged the Committee to quickly finalize the report and send it to the Council.
The Advisory Committee report is due to be presented to and considered at the September 2020 session of the Human Rights Council, although some Committee members expressed the wish to finalize the report at the current Committee session.
Feb 17, 2020
Today the ICJ published a guide on Corporate Accountability for Abuses of Economic, Social & Cultural Rights in Conflict and Transition.
Around the world, businesses frequently operate in areas or regions in which armed conflict, internal disturbances or upheaval, severe authoritarianism, or other crises are either continuing or have recently ceased.
It is now common for societies seeking to move past such periods to employ transitional justice processes and mechanisms in efforts to build constitutional democracies grounded in the rule of law, protection of human rights and the fair administration of justice.
At times businesses are involved, either directly or in complicity with State agents, armed groups or other actors, in human rights violations or abuses, which occur during or after such conflicts or authoritarian settings.
These abuses may be of civil and political rights but they also often implicate economic, social and cultural rights. Failure to properly consider abuses of economic, social and cultural rights in transitional justice processes, including those caused or contributed to by businesses, can render their outcomes less effective and unsustainable.
All transitional justice processes and mechanisms must be grounded in the principles of international law.
This guide therefore sets out the core principles of international human rights law relating to: Transitional Justice; Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Business and Human Rights, clearly describing how these three sets of principles interact and coalesce.
This guide will therefore be particular useful to transitional justice practitioners in ensuring that the design and implementation of transitional justice processes and mechanisms are fully consistent with international human rights law.
It also provides guidance to businesses in considering how to ensure compliance with international human rights law when they are operating in situations where conflict is occurring, likely to occur or recently has occurred.
In addition, because of their severe vulnerability of children to rights violations in such contexts, the guide includes a specific chapter focuses on corporate accountability for abuses of children’s rights in conflict settings.
The guide draws on examples of best practice throughout and includes case studies and examples from a wide range of countries including: Argentina; Colombia; East-Timor; Mauritius; Myanmar; Liberia; South Africa; Sierra Leone; Uganda and Tunisia.
Read also
The guide is best read with the following ICJ publications:
The ICJ’s Practitioners Guide on The Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Gross Human Rights Violations; the ICJ’s Practitioners Guide on Adjudicating Economic, Social and Cultural Rights at National Level; The ICJ & Child Rights International Network’s Practical Guide for Non-Governmental Organizations on how to use the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment No. 16; and the ICJ and UNICEF’s Practical Guide for States on how to implement the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment no. 16.
Download
Universal-ESCR accountability guide-Publications-Reports-Thematic report-2020-ENG (the full guide, in PDF)
Universal-ESCR accountability guide summary-Publications-Reports-Thematic report-2020-ENG (the executive summary and overview, in PDF)
