Oct 10, 2019 | Advocacy, News
On 9 October 2019, in commemoration of the World Day against the Death Penalty (10 October), the ICJ, Thai Journalists Association (TJA), Internews, and the Delegation of the European Union in Thailand held a workshop on “Legal, Moral and Human Rights Issues in Death Penalty” at the Thai Journalists’ Association.
The participants included 35 journalists from various news agencies in Thailand and journalism and human rights students.
The course aimed to help strengthen the capacity of journalists to write informatively and critically about death penalty issues in Thailand. Through this course, journalists learned about the abolition of death penalty in other regions of the world and reviewed cases which have transformed public opinion on capital punishment around the world.
Sanhawan Srisod, the ICJ’s Legal Adviser, held a session to discuss capital punishment in Thailand’s criminal justice system. She underscored that there is no perfect justice system and as the risk of miscarriage of justice is always present, the death penalty should not be retained. She further encouraged journalists to help strengthen calls for an effective criminal justice response to serious crimes, as an alternative to the death penalty. She further pointed out current domestic investigation and prosecution practices which risk breaching international law and standards. These, she noted, may hamper the legality and efficiency of investigations and prosecutions, and pose a risk of rendering an innocent person eligible for capital punishment.
Other speakers at the Workshop included:
- E. Mr Pirkka Tapiola, Ambassador of the European Union to Thailand
- E. Mr Emilio de Miguel Calabia, Ambassador of Spain to Thailand
- Judge Hanne Sophie Greve, Commissioner, the International Commission against the Death Penalty (ICDP)
- Representative from Thailand’s Ministry of Justice
- Toshi Kazama, Photographer and anti-death penalty advocate
- Orasom Suthisakorn, Author and prison writing course instructor
Background
The ICJ categorically opposes the death penalty in all situations and considers it a violation of the right to life and a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.
Thailand has repeated commitments on the international stage to work towards abolition and has committed to becoming an abolitionist state in its master plan for human rights.
In June 2018, however, 26-year-old Teerasak Longji was executed by lethal injection for aggravated murder. It was Thailand’s first execution in nine years. The last previous execution occurred in 2009 when two men were executed for drug-related crimes.
The UN General Assembly, has repeatedly adopted Resolutions supported by very wide majorities, calling on all retentionist states to observe a moratorium on the death penalty with a view to full abolition.
Thailand is a State party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Thailand has not become party to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty in law and practice.
In March 2017, the UN Human Rights Committee, the body mandated to interpret and monitor compliance with respect to the ICCPR, issued Concluding Observations after reviewing Thailand’s 2nd country report on the implementation of its obligations under the ICCPR. The Human Rights Committee recommended that Thailand “consider abolishing the death penalty and acceding to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR”, and if the death penalty is maintained, to “take all measures necessary… to ensure that it is limited to the most serious crimes, such as acts carried out with the intention of killing.”
There are reportedly 55 crimes punishable by death in Thailand, including crimes relating to corruption, bribery and drugs, which do not meet the threshold of the “most serious crimes” within the meaning of the ICCPR.
Sep 30, 2019 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
The ICJ has made a submission to the UN Human Rights Committee in advance of its forthcoming examination of Pakistan’s follow-up report under International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
In its submission, the ICJ has brought to the Committee’s attention concerns in relation to the following issues:
- Shortcomings in the legal framework relevant to enforced disappearances;
- The continuing practice of enforced disappearances and, in this context, the ongoing impunity of law enforcement and security agencies;
- The promulgation of the Actions (in aid of civil power) Ordinance, 2019; and
- The ineffectiveness of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances.
The Human Rights Committee will examine Pakistan’s follow-up report during its 127th session, which will be held in Geneva from 14 October to 9 November 2019.
The UN Human Rights Committee issued its Concluding Observations in August 2017, following its review in July 2017 of Pakistan’s first periodic report. Among its many recommendations, for follow-up the Committee prioritized recommendations related to the death penalty; enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings; and freedom of religion, conscience and belief.
The Committee requested Pakistan to provide information on the implementation on these recommendations within one year of the adoption of the Concluding Observations, which was due on in August 2018.
Pakistan submitted its follow up report to the Committee in May 2019.
Download
Pakistan-UNHCR submission-advocacy-non legal submission-2019-ENG(submission in PDF)
Sep 27, 2019 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
Today, at the close of the 42nd regular session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the ICJ and other NGOs highlighted key acheivements and failures.
The joint civil society statement, delivered by International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) on behalf of the group, read as follows (not all text could be read aloud due to time limits):
“The Council reaffirmed that reprisals can never be justified. Council members rejected attempts to weaken the text including attempts to delete the references to the roles of the Assistant Secretary-General and the Human Rights Council Presidents. The resolution listed key trends such as the patterns of reprisals, increasing self-censorship, the use of national security arguments and counter-terrorism strategies by States as justification for blocking access to the UN, acknowledged the specific risks to individuals in vulnerable situations or belonging to marginalized groups, and called on the UN to implement gender-responsive policies to end reprisals. The Council called on States to combat impunity and to report back to it on how they are preventing reprisals, both online and offline. The Bahamas and the Maldives responded to this call during the interactive dialogue and we encourage more States to follow their good practice. We also encourage States to follow the good practice of Germany and Costa Rica in raising specific cases of reprisals. The Council also welcomed the role of the Assistant Secretary-General and invited the General Assembly to step up its efforts to address reprisals and ensure a coherent system-wide response.
We welcome the creation of a Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) on Venezuela as an important step towards accountability for the grave human rights violations documented by the High Commissioner. We urge Venezuela to cooperate with the FFM and to honor the commitments they have made during this session, including by allowing OHCHR unfettered access to all regions and detention centers and implementing their recommendations. Cooperation and constructive engagement and measures for international accountability and justice should be seen as complementary and mutually reinforcing.
We welcome the renewal and strengthening of the mandate of the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen, sending a clear message to parties to the conflict – and to victims – that accountability is at the center of the mandate, and providing a crucial and much-needed deterrent to further violations and abuses. States should support the recommendations made by the GEE in their recent report, including prohibiting the authorization of transfers of, and refraining from providing, arms that could be used in the conflict to such parties; and clarifying the GEE’s role to collect and preserve evidence of abuses.
We welcome the renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Cambodia, but regret that calls to strengthen the mandate of the OHCHR to monitor and report on the situation have been ignored. We regret that the resolution fails to accurately depict the continuing crackdowns on civil society and the severity and scale of recent attacks on the political opposition.
We welcome the renewal of the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry on Burundi. Its work is vital as the country heads towards elections in 2020. The Burundian Government should desist from denial and insults, and should cooperate with the Commission and other UN bodies and mechanisms.
We welcome that the EU and OIC have jointly presented a resolution on Myanmar requesting the High Commissioner to report on the implementation of the recommendations of the Fact-Finding Mission at HRC 45. However, the international community needs to take stronger action to ensure accountability for and cessation of grave international crimes, in particular by referring Myanmar to the ICC and imposing a global arms embargo – and by acting on the FFM’s reports, including those on economic interests of the military and on sexual and gender-based violence in Myanmar and the gendered impact of its ethnic conflicts.
The joint EU/OIC resolution on Myanmar welcomes the FFM report on the military’s economic interests, which identifies companies contributing to abuses. The High Commissioner, however, has still not transmitted the database of companies facilitating Israel’s illegal settlements more than 2 and a half years after its mandated release. The High Commissioner pledged in March to fulfil the mandate “within the coming months”. The ongoing unexplained and unprecedented delays have become a matter of credibility, for both the High Commissioner and the HRC. Mr. President, we request that you confer with the High Commissioner and advise as soon as possible when this important Council mandate will be fulfilled.
‘Cautious optimism’ best defines our approach to Sudan. While this year’s resolution, which welcomes the peaceful popular uprising, renews the Independent Expert’s mandate, supports the opening of an OHCHR country office, and highlights the role and needs of civil society, is an improvement on 2018, significant challenges remain. Ensuring accountability for the perpetrators of grave human rights and humanitarian law violations should be a central priority for the new Government, and the Council should assist in this regard.
We regret the lack of Council action on Kashmir and urge the Council, as well as India and Pakistan, to act on all the recommendations in the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
On terrorism and human rights, we are deeply disappointed that Mexico and other States have partially acquiesced in attempts by Egypt to dilute or distract the work of the Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism away from its appropriate focus on human rights violations while countering terrorism and human rights of victims of terrorism. We regret that States have asked the Special Rapporteur to spend the limited time and resources of the mandate, to comment on the overbroad concept of the “effects” of terrorism, by which Egypt and some other States seem primarily to mean macroeconomic, industrial, and investment impacts, rather than the human rights of individual victims. The length to which States seem willing to put the existing Special Rapporteur’s mandate at risk, in the name of protecting it, while failing even to incorporate stronger consensus text on human rights issues included in the most recent merged parallel resolution at the General Assembly, suggests that the merger of the previous Mexican and Egyptian thematic resolutions no longer holds any real promise of positive results for human rights.
We welcome the adoption of the resolution on the question of the death penalty, which is an important reflection of the movement towards the international abolition of this cruel punishment. Significantly, this resolution reiterates and affirms the position of international law that the abolition of the death penalty is an irrevocable commitment and that an absolute prohibition exists to guard against its reintroduction. We also welcome the acknowledgement of the ‘most serious crimes’ threshold that acts to restrict the death penalty, in States that have yet to abolish it, only to crimes of extreme gravity; this resolution plainly identifies that criminal conduct that does not result directly and intentionally in death can never meet the threshold test and can never serve as a basis for the use of the death penalty. We are very pleased to acknowledge that the adoption of this resolution is complimentary to the General Assembly’s resolution calling for an international moratorium on the death penalty and, together, they serve to illustrate the advancing global commitment to abolition.
We welcome the Council’s renewed attention to the protection of the right to privacy in the digital age: fully integrating human rights into the design, development and deployment of Artificial Intelligence, machine learning technologies, automated decision-making, and biometric systems, is essential to safeguard not only the right to privacy, but also to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association, and economic social and cultural rights.
On human rights in the administration of justice, we welcome the focus in this year’s resolution on concrete measures to prevent and respond to violence, death and serious injury in situations of deprivation of liberty, which illustrates the potential of thematic resolutions to set out specific practical, legal and policy steps that can be drawn on by governments, civil society, and other stakeholders to have real positive impact at the national level.
We commend Australia for its leadership on Saudi Arabia, as well as the other States who stood up for women’s rights activists and accountability. We urge more States to live up to their commitment to defend civil society and sign the statement in the coming 2 weeks.
We appreciate the attention paid by individual governments to the situation in China, including the dire situation facing Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims; the crackdown on human rights defenders, including those working to draw attention to violations of economic, social and cultural rights; and the suppression of fundamental freedoms in Tibet. However, we deplore that the Council and many of its members have once again failed to take decisive action to ensure monitoring and reporting on the human rights situation in the country, especially Xinjiang, and press for access for the High Commissioner.
For five years since the last joint statement in March 2014, the Council has failed to hold Egypt accountable for continuing systematic and widespread gross human rights violations. In the latest crackdown on peaceful protests, reports indicate that more than 2000 people have been arrested in the past week. When will the Council break its silence and convene a Special Session to address the grave and deteriorating human rights situation in Egypt?”
Signatories:
- International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
- DefendDefenders (the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project)
- Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI)
- CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
- Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
- Asian Legal Resource Centre
- Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
- International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
- Amnesty International
- Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
- Human Rights Watch
- International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
Jul 18, 2019 | News
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) today welcomed the decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ-CIJ for its acronym) upholding the right of consular access and notification for Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav.
The Court determined that Pakistan had unlawfully denied Jadhav consular access before and after his summary trial by a military court.
It emphasized that any “potential prejudice and the implications for the evidence and the right of defence of the accused should receive close scrutiny during the review and reconsideration.”
The Court categorically held that Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) “does not exclude from its scope certain categories of persons, such as those suspected of espionage,” as argued by Pakistan.
“The decision by the International Court today is a resounding affirmation that there can be no curtailment of the right to consular access by foreign nationals by States that are Party to the VCCR,” said Ian Seiderman, Legal and Policy Director of the ICJ.
“Consular access is essential to ensure a fair trial for foreign nationals and this human right must not in any way be made contingent upon the offence foreign nationals are charged with.”
The International Court called on Pakistan to give effect to the Court’s ruling by providing effective review and reconsideration of both his conviction and sentence, including by taking account of the principles of the right to a fair trial.
The ICJ has pointed out that Pakistan’s military justice system and procedures are incompatible with the right to a fair trial. Under international standards, military tribunals are never permissible in prosecutions against civilians for offences carrying the death penalty.
Since 3 March 2016, Kulbhushan Jadhav has been in custody of the Pakistani authorities. The circumstances of his arrest remain in dispute between the Parties.
India was informed of the arrest on 25 March 2016. On 10 April 2017, Pakistan’s military announced Kulbhushan Jadhav had been convicted and sentenced to death by a military court for “espionage and sabotage activities against Pakistan.”
India had brought the case against Pakistan before the International Court of Justice, alleging “egregious violations” of the VCCR by Pakistan because of the denial of consular access to Jadhav.
In response, Pakistan had primarily argued that Jadhav is a an Indian spy involved in acts of terrorism in Pakistan, and the VCCR is not applicable to spies or “terrorists” due to the inherent nature of the offences of espionage and terrorism.
“States around the world continue to use counter terrorism and national security as a justification to curtail human rights – the International Court of Justice’s affirmation that the protections under the VCCR are not conditional is hugely significant in this context,” said Ian Seiderman.
The International Court also held that it considered a continued stay of Jadhav’s execution as constituting “an indispensable condition for the effective review and reconsideration of the conviction and sentence.”
In May 2017, the Court had asked Pakistan to take all measures at its disposal to ensure that Jadhav is not executed pending the final decision in the proceedings.
The ICJ considers the death penalty a violation of the right to life and cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and notes that a large majority of States, in repeated UN resolutions, have called on retentionist states to declare a moratorium on the practice with a view to abolition.
Background
In addition to the arguments regarding espionage and terrorism, Pakistan also relied on a bilateral agreement on consular access, signed by India and Pakistan in 2008, arguing that the agreement overrides the obligations under the VCCR. The International Court of Justice, however, rejected this argument, on the ground that, among other things, obligations under the VCCR may be enhanced or clarified by bilateral treaties, but cannot be diluted or undermined.
India had requested a number of other measures of relief from the Court, including the annulment of Kulbhushan Jadhav’s death sentence; a declaration that Kulbhushan Jadhav’s military trial was in violation of the VCCR and international human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); a directive restraining Pakistan from giving effect to the death sentence; and a directive to release Kulbhushan Jadhav and ensure his safe passage to India.
However, in accordance with its jurisdictional competencies and prior precedents, the Court denied these remedies to India. As “appropriate reparation” in this case, the Court directed Pakistan to effectively review and reconsider Jadhav’s conviction and sentence “to ensure that full weight is given to the effect of the violation of the rights set forth in Article 36 of the Vienna Convention.”
Contact
Ian Seiderman: ICJ Legal and Policy Director, e: ian.seiderman(a)icj.org
Frederick Rawski: ICJ’s Asia Pacific Region, e: frederick.rawski(a)icj.org
Jun 28, 2019 | News
The ICJ categorically condemns Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena’s endorsement of death warrants of four people convicted of drug-related offences.
Today, the ICJ urged the President to stop the imminent execution of these four convicts and to respect the de facto moratorium Sri Lanka has observed on capital punishment that over the past 43 years.
The ICJ has called on Sri Lanka to move toward full abolition of the abhorrent practice.
“President Sirisena’s resolve to resume executions would be a violation of Sri Lanka’s obligations under international human rights law and a disastrous for human rights in the country. It is also inconsistent with the global trend towards the abolition of the death penalty,” said Frederick Rawski, ICJ’s Asia-Pacific Director.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday June 26, President Sirisena announced that four execution warrants of those convicted of drug offences had been signed and that the dates for the execution had also been determined.
Those dates were left unspecified. With 1299 people on death row, the lives of at least 46 more prisoners, whose execution warrants have been prepared, are now under imminent threat.
Sri Lanka is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, under which it is not permitted to impose the death penalty for drug offences, the resumption of the death penalty after an extended is also incompatible with the ICCPR.
The ICJ opposes the death penalty in all circumstances without exception. The death penalty constitutes a violation of the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.
The UN General Assembly has adopted repeated resolutions, most recently in December 2018, by overwhelming majority in calling for all retentionist States to observe an immediate moratorium with a view to abolition.
Sri Lanka voted in favour of a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in the 2018 UN GA Resolution.
The ICJ urgently calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to immediately halt all plans for execution and to do away with the capital punishment once and for all in keeping with its own commitment before the UN General Assembly for a global moratorium on the use of death penalty.
Instead of resuming executions, the Sri Lankan authorities should focus on effective, evidence-based approaches to crime prevention in manners that conform to international human rights law and standards.
Background
The UN Human Rights Committee, the supervisory body for the ICCPR, has made it clear that the imposition of the death penalty for crimes that are not of extreme gravity involving intentional killing, such as “drug offences” is incompatible with the Covenant as such offences do not meet the threshold of “most serious crimes”.
It has affirmed that that States parties that are not yet totally abolitionist should be on an irrevocable path towards complete eradication of the death penalty, de facto and de jure, in the foreseeable future.
The death penalty cannot be reconciled with full respect for the right to life, and abolition of the death penalty is both desirable and necessary for the enhancement of human dignity and progressive development of human rights.
It is contrary to the object and purpose of article 6 for States parties to take steps to increase de facto the rate and extent in which they resort to the death penalty, or to reduce the number of pardons and commutations they grant.
Contact
Frederick Rawski, ICJ Asia Pacific Region Director, e: frederick.rawski(a)icj.org, t: +66 644781121
