Paper Diet
Feeds the Toothless
By Sanjay Suri
THE COMMONWEALTH hasn’t
done badly on human rights – on paper that is.
The Abuja meeting will seek to transfer at least some
of those rights on to the street where they are needed. |
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A Commonwealth Human Rights Forum Dec. 3 and 4 will for the
first time bring together non-governmental human rights organisations
and national human rights institutions.
The forum is being planned as a platform where urgent human
rights issues facing member countries will be raised and presented
to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to
follow.
So is this just another of those Commonwealth groups, with
more print to follow under a new letterhead?
Look at some of the mechanisms the Commonwealth has already:
The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG): This is
made up of a rotating group of eight foreign ministers (currently
Australia, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Botswana, India, Malta,
Nigeria and Samoa). Its brief is to look into “serious
or persistent violations” of the principles of the Harare
Declaration of 1997 which seeks to bind member countries to
democracy, the rule of law and human rights.
The Human Rights Unit, which is the main body responsible
for human rights within the Commonwealth Secretariat. It is
a free-standing unit that reports directly to the Secretary-General.
The Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation which supports
human rights through technical assistance which includes human
rights training.
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative itself, a non-governmental
group set up with support from the Commonwealth Foundation.
CMAG has the highest profile among these, which does not
mean that it has effective reach. It can look at a problem,
send a team, recommend action to the host government, and
then at most recommend suspension of the country concerned
from the Commonwealth.
At the moment Pakistan and Zimbabwe stand suspended from
the councils of the Commonwealth, a kind of half-way suspension
house. They remain members, but cannot participate in decision-making
bodies.
These can hardly be decisions that improve human rights anyway.
“The Harare declaration refers to a broader concept
of human rights, but to date CMAG has mostly been concerned
with ensuring formal democracy, with its focus on the unconstitutional
overthrow of a democratically elected government,” Clare
Doube from the New Delhi-based Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative
(CHRI) told Terra Viva.
“Ideally CMAG should also look at the more substantive
aspects of democratic functioning of its member states, including
the value they place on protecting and promoting human rights,”
Doube says. “Formal exercise of voting rights is not
determinative of the fundamental freedoms enjoyed by a population.”
The Human Rights Unit, Doube says, comprises just two programme
officers annd an administration person. “More resources
should be dedicated to their work,” she says. The third
mechanism, the technical cooperation fund, has seen its budget
slashed by 40 percent in 1990 (it is 23 million pounds for
2003-04).
The Commonwealth also promotes human rights through the Commonwealth
Foundation and the civil society organisations it supports.
Many of these play an active role in supporting human rights.
“But there is a great deal of room for improvement
and innovation in all that the Commonwealth does,” says
Doube. “The Commonwealth has made a number of commitments
to human rights over a number of decades, but has no system
in place for monitoring and reporting on the implementation
of these commitments. The Commonwealth is strewn with paper
promises.”
Human rights activists within the Commonwealth propose improvements
along several lines:
The creation of a Commonwealth human rights commissioner
mandated to promote, protect and monitor human rights, give
advice, and make recommendations.
The creation of a human rights adviser to CMAG, to work
like rapporteurs with the United Nations. An adviser such
as a recently retired Supreme Court judge could provide evidence
prior to CMAG meetings, and assist governments running into
trouble or emerging from CMAG suspension.
More generally human rights could be supported through an
environment that promotes open governance. This would mean
implementation of comprehensive information access and disclosure
policies.
The non-governmental Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative
set up in 1987 with support from associations like those of
Commonwealth journalists, broadcasters, trade unions, parliamentarians
and others has been working largely on policy level advocacy,
and some educational ventures.
The Forum that the CHRI is organising in Abuja will now “bring
together many different organisations that have never come
together before,” Doube says. “It should result
in the creation of a new network, and should be a good kick
in the right direction. The CHRI will be the secretariat of
that network.”
The outcome of the two-day meeting will be fed to CHOGM that
gets going the day after the CHRI forum concludes. Commonwealth
leaders have been listening to human rights noises for long.
The CHRI is hoping that this move will be a little noisier,
and lead to a little more action.
Leaders will be on watch particularly over action they take
over human rights abuses in Pakistan and Zimbabwe. [end]
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