Feb 15, 2021 | News
On 15 February 2021, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) addressed the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) during the opening of its 69th Session.
Drawing the CESCR’s attention to States’ continued failure to make provisions to meet their obligations under the right to health, the ICJ highlighted States’ obligations to:
- Procure COVID-19 vaccines;
- Produce, publicize and implement comprehensive vaccine rollout plans;
- Ensure non-discriminatory access to vaccines to all people, including to undocumented persons;
- Cooperate with other States to ensure equitable vaccine access globally; and
- Ensure continued access to effective remedies, including judicial remedies, for human rights violations, including of the right to health.
ICJ Legal Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Timothy Fish Hodgson, said:
“Equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines is a right, not a privilege. States are obliged to plan transparently and clearly for the provision of vaccines. In doing so, they must be guided by human rights standards, including those relating to the right to health. Particularly at this time, it is imperative that Courts be accessible and operational to ensure the enforcement of this right.”
Applauding CESCR’s statements on COVID-19 in general and vaccine access in particular, the ICJ’s submission encourages the Committee to make full use of the Convention’s State reporting procedure to provide crucial and specific guidance to individual States on how best to ensure compliance with their Covenant obligations under the right to health in the context of COVID-19.
The ICJ’s submission provides alarming examples of various States’ failure to respect, protect and fulfil the right to health, including the refusal of some States to take steps to procure vaccines at all. Such States include Tanzania, Burundi, Eritrea and Madagascar.
Notable too is Israel’s explicit flouting of its obligation to ensure vaccine access to Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the policy decisions of countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica to inhibit access to vaccines for migrants by requiring prohibitive documentary access as a precondition.
The ICJ’s submission also addresses the large divide between vaccine access in Global North and Global South countries. Some States, notably in the Global North, have procured enough doses to vaccinate their population several times over, while others, especially in the Global South, have not been able to begin the process because of limited availability and purchasing power. Despite these inequalities, many wealthier countries continue to ignore the recommendations of CESCR and the advice of a large range of UN Special Procedures by opposing a WTO intellectual property waiver which would assist in ensuring the affordability of vaccines for all States.
To read the full statement, click here: Universal-CESCR-Opening-Statement-2021-ENG
Contact
Timothy Fish Hodgson, Legal Adviser on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, t: +27828719905, e: timothy.hodgson(a)icj.org
Tanveer Jeewa, Media and Legal Consultant, e: Tanveer.Jeewa(a)icj.org
Feb 10, 2021 | News
The ICJ and the Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH) are deeply concerned about the role of the military in the arrest, detention and referral for prosecution by military courts of dozens of civilians in Tripoli.
The military’s crackdown has taken place in the context of ongoing protests in the city against a dire economic situation exacerbated by the nation-wide lockdown imposed by the government with the stated intention of combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Under the Rule of Law, the military has no business policing demonstrations, detaining protesters or prosecuting civilians,” said Said Benarbia, the ICJ’s Middle East and North Africa Programme Director. “Instead of addressing the legitimate grievances of those protesting, the Lebanese government is using the military to silence dissenting voices by arresting and sending protestors for trial before military tribunals.”
While the military reported the arrest of five individuals on 27 January, five on 29 January and another 17 on 31 January, for, among other things, allegedly engaging in “rioting,” “vandalism” and “obstruction of civil defence,” other sources suggest at least 58 civilians were arrested by the military in connection with the above-mentioned protests in Tripoli. The whereabouts of many detainees remained undisclosed for days following their arrest. According to lawyers, the military’s Office of Public Prosecution has referred at least 14 individuals to a military Investigating Judge.
The ICJ and CLDH call on the Lebanese authorities to ensure that the military plays no role in policing the ongoing protests and in other law enforcement functions that are properly the sole responsibility of civilian law enforcement agencies. The military courts’ jurisdiction, in particular, must be confined exclusively to the commission of military offences by military personnel and, in turn, totally exclude the possibility of prosecuting civilians, as well as cases involving the perpetration of human rights violations by military personnel.
Referrals by the military’s Office of Public Prosecution follow an increasing, worrying trend of trying those involved in anti-government protests before military courts, which are neither independent nor impartial, and whose procedures do not comply with international fair trial standards.
“Lebanon’s military tribunals have a grim history of unfair trials and politicized proceedings against those suspected of opposing the government,” said Fadel Fakih, CLDH’s Executive Director. “If faith in the Lebanese justice system is to be restored, the jurisdiction of military tribunals must be fully reformed,” he added.
In a 2018 briefing paper entitled “The Jurisdiction and Independence of the Military Courts System in Lebanon in Light of International Standards,” the ICJ called on the Lebanese authorities to enhance the independence and impartiality of military courts, ensure the fairness of their procedures, and restrict their jurisdiction to cases involving members of the military for military offences.
Contact
Said Benarbia, Director of the ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme, t: +41 22 979 38 17; e: said.benarbia(a)icj.org.
Fadel Fakih, Director of the Lebanese Center for Human Rights, t +961 81 065 041; e: ffakih(a)cldh-lebanon.org
Download
Lebanon-Military-Courts-COVID19-Press-Release-2021-ENG.pdf (English)
Lebanon-Military-Courts-COVID19-Press-Release-2021-ARB.pdf (Arabic)
Feb 4, 2021 | Advocacy, News
The ICJ, in a letter to the Chairperson of the African Union, recommended that the African Union acknowledge that COVID-19 vaccines are a “public good” and all States must ensure access to these vaccines in order to realize the human rights of their inhabitants.
The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, to which most AU Member States are Party, provides that “every individual shall have the right to enjoy the best attainable state of physical and mental health” (Art 16(1)). The Charter also places an obligation on the States Parties to take all “necessary measures to protect the health of their people and to ensure that they receive medical attention when they are sick” (Art 16(2)).
This obligation must be understood consistently with the equivalent Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights (ICESCR), to which most AU Member States are also Party. That provision protects the right to the “highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”, and requires States to take all necessary measures to realize this right including to ensure “the prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases” (Art 12(1)(c)). Vaccines, for some such diseases including COVID-19, are necessarily an integral part of prevention, treatment and control.
“It is essential for the process of vaccine procurement and allocation to be in line with international human rights standards. The African continent and its people cannot afford to be left behind, and the best way to ensure that does not happen is to move forward and prioritize each individuals right to health and corresponding human rights.” –
Justice Sanji Monageng, ICJ Commissioner, Botswana
Therefore, under these treaties and other internationally binding human rights law, it is clear access to certain vaccines is necessary to fulfill a human right, must not be seen as a privilege. Vaccines are a public good and should be treated as such by States. This understanding was affirmed by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in December in a statement on universal and equitable access to vaccines. CESCR stressed that: “every person has a right to have access to a vaccine for COVID-19 that is safe, effective and based on the application of the best scientific developments”. It further implored States to “give maximum priority to the provision of vaccines for COVID-19 to all persons”.
Recommendations of the International Commission of Jurists
The AU will be expected by the constituents of its Members to fulfil its proper leadership function in terms its Constitutive Act an ensure the promotion and protection of human rights in Africa. To this end, the ICJ calls upon the AU to adopt resolutions:
- Calling on all member States to ensure that their COVID-19 responses, including vaccine acquisition and distribution, comply with international human rights law and standards including those particularly relating to the rights to health and to duty ensure this right is realized through international cooperation.
- Calling on all member States to endorse and fully participate in the WHO’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool.
- Calling on all member States to openly support the approval and implementation of a waiver of intellectual property rights in terms of the TRIPS agreement in order to ensure equitable and affordable access of COVID-19 vaccines and treatment for all.
- Calling on all member States to urgently publish public, comprehensive vaccine rollout plans and transparently provide clear and full health-related information to their populations.
- Calling on all participants in COVAX to endorse and fully participate in the WHO’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool.
- Calling on the WTO to respond expeditiously and favourably to the proposal communicated by India and South Africa for waiver of IP protection for vaccines.
To read the full submission, click here.
Contact
Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, ICJ Africa Director Kaajal.Keogh(a)icj.org +27 84 5148039
Tanveer Jeewa, Media and Legal Consultant Tanveer.Jeewa(a)icj.org
Dec 21, 2020 | News
We are all about to celebrate the festive season. For a large number of people, there will be little to celebrate. Rule of Law & Human Rights violations are taking place, daily, unaccounted for and affecting their lives.
Here are some example:
- Failure to access healthcare of all people in India, Libya and South Africa;
- Enacting effective bans on abortion in some states in the USA;
- Failure to adequately tackle skyrocketing domestic violence around the globe during lockdown;
- Rights of refugees, stateless persons and destitute migrants being trampled on worldwide;
- LGBT minorities refused access to shelters;
- Ban on sexual education in Poland;
- Hungary’s prohibition of legal gender recognition;
- Curtailing of due process and fair trial rights;
- … and more
For almost a year, the ICJ has been on the front lines to document, advocate and provide efficient legal tools for civil society and the legal community to stop these abuses.
Please click on Donate, as little as 5 US$, to support ICJ fight against these repeated attacks on the most basic of Human Rights.
Dec 16, 2020 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
In an open letter, the ICJ today called on Indonesia’s COVID-19 Mitigation Task Force to provide detailed guidance to the Government of Indonesia, in taking actionable steps to implement gender responsive measures in the country.
Since the beginning of the outbreak of the pandemic, the mortality rate of Indonesia is reportedly among the highest in the world.
In addressing the pandemic, the Government has established regulations and repeatedly advised people to restrict social gatherings and stay at home. These measures have a particularly disparate impact on Indonesian women, exacerbating the pre-existing gender inequalities in Indonesia.
The ICJ has previously highlighted the challenges faced by women in its report “Living Like People who die slowly.” Similar concerns has been expressed by the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
The ICJ called the task force to take proactive and special measures to protect women workers in its COVID-19 response, in line with the recommendations of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women’s Guidance Note on COVID-19.
Specifically, the ICJ has recommended that it promote government responses to:
- Ensure that women receive basic needs support
- Provide more working opportunities for women to work from home
- Provide online counseling or mental health support for women workers
The ICJ considers that the failure to recognize the gender dynamics affecting women workers, particularly public health emergencies, limits the effectiveness of the overall Government’s response efforts and impedes the full realization of women’s human rights in Indonesia.
Download
