ICJ experts at Global Consultation on the Right to Challenge Detention

ICJ experts at Global Consultation on the Right to Challenge Detention

Matt Pollard and Alex Conte, of the ICJ’s International Law and Protection Programmes, will give presentations during the Global Consultation on the Right to Challenge the Lawfulness of Detention, to be held in Geneva on 1-2 September 2014.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in cooperation with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, will convene the Consultation. The aim of the two-day meeting is to seek input on the development by the Working Group of draft basic principles and guidelines on remedies and procedures on the right of anyone deprived of his or her liberty, by arrest or detention, to bring proceedings before court, in order that the court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his or her detention and order his or her release if the detention is not lawful.

ICJ experts, Matt Pollard and Alex Conte, will be members of two panel discussions during the Global Consultation, respectively on the framework, scope and content of the right to court review of detention and on exercise of that right in situations of armed conflict, state of emergency or for counter-terrorism purposes.

The ICJ has already made two written submissions to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on the subject, in November 2013 and April 2014.

Go to the OHCHR webpage on the Global Consultation

See the ICJ’s written submissions to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

ICJ addresses OSCE on human rights and terrorist listing and sanctions regimes

ICJ addresses OSCE on human rights and terrorist listing and sanctions regimes

The ICJ’s Director of International Law and Protection Programmes, Alex Conte, today addressed the Human Dimension Committee of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on the subject of human rights and terrorist listing and sanctions regimes.

The ICJ’s intervention:

  • Provided an overview of the procedures for the listing and delisting of individuals or entities in the sanctions lists of the Security Council’s Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee;
  • Outlined the legal challenges and implications concerning the relationship between human rights and relevant Security Council resolutions, emphasising that regional courts have held States to account for any violation of human rights, irrespective of whether this comes about as a result of implementing Security Council listing and sanctions resolutions; and
  • Identified some minimum safeguards applicable by States in their implementation of sanctions.

 

ICJ convenes expert roundtable on asylum claims based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression

ICJ convenes expert roundtable on asylum claims based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression

The ICJ is today holding an expert roundtable on asylum claims based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.

Participants include asylum judges and lawyers; officials from national refugee status determination authorities, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; asylum academics; and staff members from other NGOs, including the Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration (ORAM), the Human Dignity Trust (HDT), the Advice on Individual Rights in Europe (AIRE) Centre and the Belgian Refugee Council.

At the roundtable, taking place in Brussels, participants will discuss: the legal challenges and responses in the context of asylum claims based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression and refugee law; reflections on the UNHCR’s Guidelines on International Protection No. 9: Claims to refugee status based on Sexual Orientation and/or Gender Identity; the concept of persecution and assessment of evidence in the context of those claims; and the relevance of European human rights law to asylum claims based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.

The programme of the expert roundtable can be downloaded here.

This roundtable forms part of a broader project of the ICJ on international protection claims based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. The ICJ’s commentary on the related CJEU judgment in X, Y and Z v The Netherlands can be downloaded here.

 

 

Translate »