Tajikistan: ICJ submission to Committee against Torture

Tajikistan: ICJ submission to Committee against Torture

The ICJ today submitted a report to the UN Committee against Torture, calling for recommendations to be made on prevention of and accountability for continued recourse to torture and ill-treatment in Tajikistan.

The ICJ’s submission is made ahead of consideration by the Committee against Torture in April to May 2018 of Tajikistan’s third periodic report on the implementation of its obligations under the Convention against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

The ICJ’s report draws from an earlier study on Achieving Justice for Gross Human Rights Violations in Tajikistan and calls on the Committee against Torture to make recommendations concerning:

  • The obligation to adequately sanction torture;
  • The obligation to prevent torture and other forms of ill-treatment, including in places of detention;
  • The obligation to investigate allegations of torture and ill-treatment;
  • The use of amnesties and pardons for torture;
  • The prohibition against the use of evidence obtained by torture;
  • The right to complain about torture and ill-treatment; and
  • The right of victims to effective remedies and reparation.

Tajikistan-CAT-Advocacy-AlternativeReport-2018ENG (download the ICJ’s submission, in PDF)

Venezuela: Visit by relevant UN human rights experts needed due to crisis

Venezuela: Visit by relevant UN human rights experts needed due to crisis

The ICJ calls for Venezuela to accept long-standing requests for country visits by UN Special Procedures whose mandates are most relevant to the rule of law and human rights crisis in the country.

The ICJ takes note of the announcement by the Venezuelan Government that it is inviting the UN Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Mr. Alfred de Zayas, to visit the country.

This announcement, together with a recent invitation to the Special Rapporteur on the right to development is significant. For more than a decade, the Venezuelan Government has denied or left unanswered requests for visits to the country by numerous other of the independent experts (known as “Special Procedures”) of the United Nations. The last mission to Venezuela by a special procedure was the Special Rapporteur on Torture in 1996.

However, the breakdown of the rule of law and the extremely serious human rights situation in Venezuela make visits by other United Nations Special Procedures of urgent relevance.

“In the course of this year, extrajudicial and arbitrary executions, torture and ill-treatment of detainees, arbitrary detention, trial of civilians by military tribunals, and persecutions and attacks against opponents, dissidents and human rights defenders have become systematic and generalized practices in Venezuela, said Federico Andreu Guzman, ICJ South America Representative.

“It is therefore difficult to see why the Government of Venezuela would not respond to long-standing requests from Special Procedure mandates relevant to these violations in favour of proactively inviting other UN experts”, Andreu Guzman added.

The ICJ therefore calls on the Government of Venezuela to invite to visit the country the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; the independence of judges and lawyers; torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association; the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; and on the situation of human rights defenders. All of these UN experts have long-standing requests to visit Venezuela, some for many years, which the Venezuelan Government has failed so far to accept.

“Under the Charter of the United Nations, Member States have the obligation to cooperate with the UN Special Procedures on human rights. This duty is of particular importance when the State is a member of the Human Rights Council, as is the case with Venezuela”, said Andreu Guzman.

The ICJ also calls on the Government of Venezuela to accept the request for a visit to the country that, since 2004, has been repeatedly issued by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Background

For several years, the following Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council have made requests to visit Venezuela: the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers; the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association; the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences; the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment; the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises; the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living; and the Special Rapporteur on the right to food.

At the regional level, although it denounced the American Convention on Human Rights in September 2012, Venezuela is still a State party to three Inter-American human rights treaties (Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture; Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons; and Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women). However, Venezuela has systematically ignored recommendations of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and has also denied IACHR requests to visit the country, made since 2004.

Contacts

Federico Andreu-Guzmán, ICJ South America Representative, tel: +57 311 481 8094; email: federico.andreu(a)icj.org

Carlos Ayala Corao, ICJ Commissioner (Venezuela), tel: +57 414 243 4872; email: cayala(a)cjlegal.net

Alex Conte, ICJ Global Redress and Accountability Initiative, tel: +22 979 3802; email: alex.conte(a)icj.org

ICJ launches global redress and accountability initiative

ICJ launches global redress and accountability initiative

The ICJ today launched a new global initiative focussed on redress and accountability for gross human rights violations.

In all regions of the world, perpetrators of gross human rights violations enjoy impunity while victims, especially the most vulnerable and marginalized, remain without effective remedies and reparation.

Governments of countries in transition and/or experiencing a wider rule of law crisis often seek to provide impunity for perpetrators of gross violations of human rights, or make no effort to hold them to account, or misuse accountability mechanisms to provide arbitrary, politically partial justice.

Yet international law requires perpetrators to be held accountable and victims to be provided with effective remedies and reparation, including truth and guarantees of non-recurrence.

This is reinforced by the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, which recognizes the need to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies that provide equal access to justice, are based on the rule of law and respect for human rights, and provide for accountability.

“Impunity and lack of redress dehumanizes victims and acts as an impediment to the cementing of democratic values and the rule of law”, said Alex Conte, coordinator of the ICJ initiative.

Lack of accountability and claims for justice dominate national debates, frequently leading to a paralysis or reduced functioning of the institutions of the State and detracting from the pursuit of other rule of law and development initiatives.

Impunity threatens a nascent democracy by rendering its constitution hollow, weakening its judiciary and damaging the political credibility of its executive.

Public institutions often act in ways that bring them into disrepute and undermine the public confidence in them that is required for sustainable transition, for example through the legislature enacting laws providing for impunity, through law enforcement and the judiciary acting on a selective basis or without independence, and/or through the executive ignoring rule of law based judgments by higher courts.

A failure to guarantee redress and accountability has too often also resulted in former structures of power, to the extent that they enjoy impunity, transforming into criminal and hostile elements that may perpetuate violence and conflict.

The ICJ’s new initiative, generously sponsored by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, currently focuses on seven countries (Cambodia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Tajikistan, Tunisia and Venezuela) aims to combat impunity and promote redress for gross human rights violations.

It concentrates on the transformative role of the law, justice mechanisms and justice actors, seeking to achieve greater adherence of national legal and institutional frameworks with international law and standards so as to allow for effective redress and accountability; more independent justice mechanisms capable of dealing with challenges of impunity and access to redress; and judges, lawyers, human rights defenders, victims and their representatives that are better equipped to demand and deliver truth, justice and reparation.

The initiative will commence with the production of baseline studies on the situation in each focus country concerning accountability, access to justice/redress and the independence and accountability of judges and lawyers.

These will form the basis for tailored plans of action for each country identifying interventions and capacity building activities that can best drive the brining to justice of perpetrators of human rights violations and the access of victims to effective remedies and reparation.

Implementation of those activities will follow, alongside the production of global manuals and guides on key challenges for redress and accountability.

GRA Initiative Factsheet

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