Jul 19, 2017
ICJ has joined other leading NGOs in calling on the UN to ensure its NGO Committee fulfils its duties of constructive dialogue with NGOs, after the Committee has failed to convene regular meetings with NGOs as required by its mandate.
Civil society has long held concern that certain political dynamics and working methods of the NGO Committee, including lack of transparency and dialogue, are serving more to obstruct rather than facilitate civil society engagement with the UN, particularly on human rights issues.
The letter therefore begins by welcoming the recent decision of the NGO Committee’s superior body, the ECOSOC, requiring the Committee to webcast its sessions.
As a next step towards improving the situation, the letter notes that the resolution that provides the mandate for the NGO Committee (ECOSOC resolution 1996/31), provides that the NGO Committee is ‘responsible for regular monitoring of the evolving relationship between NGOs and the UN’. The resolution specifically requires that the Committee ‘shall hold’ meetings with accredited NGOs before each of its sessions and at other times as necessary, to discuss ‘questions of interest to the Committee or to the organizations related to the relationship between NGOs and the United Nations.’ The resolution specifies that a report on such consultations is to be transmitted to ECOSOC for appropriate action.
As far as is known to the NGOs, no such meetings have been held, in recent years.
The letter affirms that regular meetings between the Committee and accredited NGOs are essential to build a more constructive relationship between the Committee (as well as the ECOSOC) and NGOs. They could help to address the wide range of challenges faced by NGOs in engaging with the UN.
The letter emphasises that, in the absence of formal opportunities to engage with the Committee, including during the meetings envisaged in resolution 1996/31, on issues of general concern, NGOs have sought to address the NGO Committee briefly at the start of Committee sessions. However, on the two most recent occasions these attempts have been rejected. The letter underlines that the Committee’s refusal to engage with NGOs on general topics of concern is in contradiction to its responsibilities outlined in resolution 1996/31.
Affirming ECOSOC’s duty to ensure that the Committee fulfils its responsibilities fully and effectively, the NGOs therefore request that the ECOSOC remind the NGO Committee of its responsibility to convene at least one meeting with NGOs before each session, beginning with its next session in January 2018.
The full letter may be downloaded in PDF format here: UN-OpenLetter-ECOSOC-NGOCommittee-2017
(photo credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias, 20 April 2016, creative commons licence, https://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/26772166976)
Jun 30, 2017 | Advocacy
A Joint NGO Statement was issued on the occasion of the Twenty-ninth meeting of UN treaty body chairs 27-30 June 2017, New York
This statement includes some reflections and recommendations, by the undersigned organisations (see list on p.6-7), in relation to the programme of work for the 2017 annual meeting.
Some of the comments and recommendations stem from a two-day consultation involving representatives of NGOs, States, treaty body members, OHCHR and academics, which took place in Geneva on 23-24 May 20171.
The consultation focused on developing a strategy for the Treaty Body strengthening process.
A report will shortly be made public.
The comments and recommendations below are structured around the substantive treaty body chairs meeting agenda items.
Universal-MeetingTreatyBodies-Advocacy-2017-ENG (full text in PDF)
Jun 28, 2017
NGOs, including the ICJ, have sent an open letter to the OHCHR Petitions Unit and Treaty Bodies chairs on threats and assaults against Treaty Body petitioners.
The purpose of this letter is to encourage Treaty Bodies to proactively request that State parties adopt protection measures in cases of reprisals against Treaty Body petitioners, and seek follow-up to those measures by OHCHR field presences.
Universal-ReprisalsTreatyBodies-Advocacy-OpenLetter-2017-ENG (full text in PDF)
Jun 28, 2017 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
The ICJ has joined other leading human rights NGOs in setting out a range of specific measures to increase the effectiveness of UN Special Procedures – independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council to address particular themes or countries.
The written submission was made in the context of the Annual Meeting of the Special Procedures, in Geneva.
Coordinated by the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), the document assesses current practices against a range of recommendations made in an earlier joint civil society submission in 2016.
The 2017 submission welcomes progress on a number of the recommendations, but also highlights issues where little or no progress has been made. It also offers several new recommendations.
Among the positive developments are the enhanced role of the Coordination Committee, action taken to combat reprisals, the creation of a database where details of individual communications (i.e. complaints) can be accessed, and engagement of Special Procedures with international and regional forums.
The full 2017 submission, entitled “The Special Procedures: Developments in Institutional Strengthening and Working Methods”, can be downloaded in PDF format here: UN-Submission-AnnualMeetingSpecialProcedures-2017
Jun 23, 2017
The ICJ has issued its Annual Report 2016, which offers a concise summary of the work carried out by the ICJ over the past year.
In 2016, the ICJ’s mission gained new urgency as the organization countered a global assault on the concept of the rule of law and respect for the international human rights legal order.
The year started with the international community seeming to accept, via the adoption of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16, the fundamental importance of the rule of law to the implementation of sustainable development around the globe.
The inclusion of the rule of law in the SDGs emphasizes the need to develop the nexus between development and the legal framework of human rights; the ICJ has done this since its inception in 1952, and more consistently since the 1970s, and will continue to do so in the context of the SDGs.
However, this optimism has been overshadowed by an unprecedented, if not entirely unforeseen, invocation by political figures around the world of fear-mongering, discrimination, and demagoguery to erode respect for human rights and undermine the basic notion of an international legal order.
As the year drew to a close, Burundi, the Gambia and South Africa initiated steps to withdraw from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (though at the time of writing the withdrawals have either been reversed or suspended in all three countries, thanks in part to efforts by the ICJ).
A new administration in the United States of America signaled policies, inside and outside the country, at odds with fundamental principles of nondiscrimination and constitutional checks and balances.
Similarly, a new administration in the Philippines rapidly transformed the country from an important advocate for abolition of the death penalty to a country that has unapologetically embraced extrajudicial killings and taken steps to reintroduce the death penalty.
Turkey responded to a failed coup d’état by initiating an arbitrary purge of the judiciary that has significantly weakened the State’s judicial system.
Egypt has undermined the concept of judicial accountability by systematically using the judicial system as a tool of oppression.
Regrettably, there are many more examples of rights regression that can also be considered.
The anger about globalization is real and should not be ignored; in fact, the ICJ has for years pointed out the dangers of a global order that provides profit-making businesses with tremendous privileges but does not hold them to account, and we are currently engaged in the ongoing process for the elaboration of an international treaty on business and human rights.
However the solution is not to throw out the international institutions and systems that have been targeted but rather to strengthen these to ensure that they are fit for purpose.
The ICJ believes in the continued relevance of institutions such as the UN and the importance of the international standards that can be upheld through its mechanisms.
The ICJ has been working to ensure that these are increasingly accessible to everyone and has been working on a project with individuals and organizations from ASEAN to encourage and facilitate access to UN mechanisms for victims of rights abuses from the region.
The ICJ’s 2016 Geneva Forum explored the role of judges and lawyers in situations of large-scale movements of refugees and migrants and considered how the judiciary can uphold and protect the rights of those affected.
The ICJ also undertook training workshops with European lawyers to enhance their capacity to protect the rights of refugees and migrants through domestic legal systems in compliance with relevant regional and international standards.
The ICJ believes that an independent and robust judiciary is essential to this dynamic concept of the rule of law but also considers that a judiciary that acts with impunity and is unaccountable for any rights transgressions committed by the judiciary itself undermines this concept.
A new Practitioners’ Guide on judicial accountability was launched that addresses the complex and under-examined issues of how to ensure accountability for judicial misconduct whilst preserving the independence of the judiciary.
Judicial systems and processes can only be effective if they are accessible and the ICJ has been working to strengthen access to justice for particularly vulnerable and marginalized groups.
For example, in 2016, the ICJ released new Practitioners’ Guides on women’s access to justice for sexual and gender-based violence and on refugee status claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
For a complete overview of ICJ’s most important activities in 2016, you can download the Annual Report 2016 (in light PDF) here:
Universal-ICJ year 2016-Publications-Annual Report-2017-ENG (in low resolution to download faster)
