Kashmiri journalists at a rare protest against a government clampdown on freedom of expression in 2012. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 2016 (IPS)

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) advanced its commitment to the safety of journalists after adopting a groundbreaking resolution with measures for states to ensure journalist protection. But this is only the first step, many note.

Though the UNHRC has adopted resolutions on the safety of journalists in the past, some note that this year’s resolution is more comprehensive in protecting the rights of freedom of expression and the press.For the first time, UNHRC called for states to release arbitrarily detained journalists and to reform laws that are misused to hinder their work.

“[The resolution] brings up these issues more explicitly than it has been brought up in other resolutions,” Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) Advocacy Director Courtney Radsch told IPS.

She stressed that the resolution acknowledges the role that states play in committing violence against journalists and in creating a permissive environment for the safety of journalists.

“It is not simply enough to talk about the safety of journalist without also addressing the need to create an environment in which freedom of expression and press freedom can flourish,” she stated.

Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) Advocacy and Communications Officer Margaux Ewen echoed similar sentiments to IPS, noting that the resolution is a “wonderful reiteration” which calls on member states to implement their international obligations.

For the first time, UNHRC called for states to release arbitrarily detained journalists and to reform laws that are misused to hinder their work.

According to CPJ, approximately 200 journalists were imprisoned worldwide in 2015. The organisation recorded the highest number of such arrests in China, where 49 journalists were imprisoned. Most recently, Chinese journalists Lu Yuyu and Li Tingyu were detained in June 2016 on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” They had been documenting and reporting on protests across the East Asian nation since 2012.

China is among the members of UNHRC.

The newly adopted resolution also affirms the right of journalists to use encryption and anonymity tools. Journalists often rely on such mechanisms to safely impart information anonymously online. They are also used to encrypt their communications in order to protect their contacts and sources.

Radsch noted that these tools are essential for journalists “to do their job in the 21^st century.”

The resolution also addresses the specific risks that women journalists face in their work, condemning all gender-based attacks.

Earlier in September, freelance journalist Gretchen Malalad and Al Jazeera Correspondent Jamela Alindogan-Caudron were subject to severe social media attacks, receiving threats of rape and death due to their coverage of the Philippine government’s controversial anti-drug war.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NJUP) Ryan Rosauro expressed his dismay of the state of journalism in the country, stating: “We will never take any threats, whether of physical harm or to silence us, lightly for we have lost far too many of our colleagues and hardly seen justice for them,” he said.

In a joint statement with NJUP, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) stated that the government must take social media threats to journalists seriously and should penalise perpetrators to ensure the safety of journalists.

In their 2016 World Press Freedom Index, RSF ranked the Philippines 138th out of 180 countries in press freedom making it one of the most dangerous countries for practicing journalists.

As in previous years, the UNHRC also highlighted the need to end violence against journalists and to combat impunity for attacks.

CPJ found that over 1,200 journalists have been killed since 1992, the majority of whom were murdered with complete impunity. Other organisations speculate that the numbers are higher, with IFJ reporting that at least 2,300 journalists and media staff have been killed since 1990.

In 2009, prominent Sri Lankan journalist and editor Lasantha Wickramatunga was beaten to death after his car was pulled over by eight helmeted men on motorcycles. Often critical of the government and its conduct in the country’s civil war, the editor had been attacked before and received death threats for months prior to his death. He even anticipated his own fate, writing an essay shortly before his death about free media in the South Asian nation.

“In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last,” Wickramatunga wrote.

Most recently, Jordanian journalist Nahed Hattar was shot dead while on his way to face charges for sharing a cartoon deemed offensive to Islam.

“The killing of Mr. Hattar is appalling, and it is unacceptable that no protection measures had been put in place to ensure his safety, particularly when the threats against him were well known to the authorities,” said UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression David Kaye.

Kaye urged authorities to bring the perpetrator to justice and to ensure legislation that allows a culture of diverse expression.

However, both Radsch and Ewen noted that the resolution is only the first step as it must be translated to action on the ground.

“We continue to see the failure of states to adequate investigate the murders of journalists…so while resolutions are important, we need to see actual concrete actions to accompany these normative statements,” Radsch told IPS.

Ewen stated that UN resolutions are “strong and strongly worded” but it still remains to be seen for states to implement measures to protect journalists and the right of freedom of expression. She pointed to RSF’s campaign to create a Special Representative to the UN Secretary-General for the safety of journalists as a way to ensure states comply with their international obligations.

Led by RSF, the Protect Journalists campaign has brought together over a 100 media organisations and human rights organisations including CPJ, the Guardian and the United Nations Correspondents Association to push for the establishment of a special representative.

During a press conference, RSF Secretary General Christophe Deloire noted that a special representative could act as an early warning and rapid response mechanism to give journalists, when threatened, access to authorities and protective measures as laid out in the resolution. He also added that a special representative with political weight can make sure the safety of journalists is integrated in all UN programs and operations.

“Every week, there are new names on new graves in journalist cemeteries…we cannot let anymore journalists be killed because of this lack of political will,” Deloire told press.

The 47-member state council adopted the resolution on the safety of journalists by consensus, expressing a deep concern for the increased number of journalists and media workers who have been killed, tortured and detained. Nations beyond the UNHRC including Austria and the United States also joined the initiative as cosponsors.

The human rights exam in Geneva complained that U.S. President Barack Obama has failed to keep his promise to close down the Guantánamo military base. Credit: Shane T. McCoy/U.S. Navy

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, May 12 2015 (IPS)

Without the emperor’s clothes, like in the Hans Christian Andersen story, the United States was forced to submit its human rights record to the scrutiny of the other 192 members of the United Nations on Monday.

Washington attended the country’s second universal periodic review (UPR) in the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, which reviews each U.N. member country’s compliance with international human rights standards.
“So today was a demonstration of the no confidence vote that world opinion has made of the United States as a country that considers itself a human rights champion,” said Jamil Dakwar, director of the Human Rights Program (HRP) of the American Civil Liberties Union, a non-profit organisation that has worked to defend individual rights and liberties since 1920.

“I think that there was a clear message from today’s review that the United States needs to do much more to protect human rights and to bring its laws and policies in line with human rights standards,” he told IPS.

Although the UPR has come in for criticism because its conclusions are negotiated among governments, it is recognised for starkly revealing the abuses that states commit against their own citizens and those of other countries – and the Monday May 11 session was no exception.

One of the demands set forth by the 117 states taking part in the debate was for Washington to take measures to prevent acts of torture in areas outside the national territory under its effective control and prosecute perpetrators, and to ensure that victims of torture were afforded redress and assistance.

With respect to torture, among the positive achievements mentioned was the release of a report on abuses committed as part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) interrogation practices.

The head of the 20-member U.S. delegation that flew over from Washington, acting legal adviser in the State Department Mary McLeod, gave an indication that the negotiations for the visit by Juan Méndez, U.N. special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay were not closed.

In March, Méndez, an Argentine lawyer who lives in the United States, complained that Washington did not intend to give him access during his visit to the more than 100 inmates in Guantanamo.

The country’s closest ally, the United Kingdom, congratulated the United States on its commitment to close Guantanamo, announced by President Barack Obama before his first term began in January 2009. But the British delegate said they would like to see it actually happen.

“The problem with Guantanamo is that it created a system of indefinite detention that we would like to see shut down with the facility,” Dakwar said. “It also created a flawed system of military commissions that provide a second system of justice. This system should also be shut down.”

Ejim Dike, executive director of the U.S. Human Rights Network, said the concerns brought to the attention of the U.S. delegation revolved around issues of poverty, criminalisation and violence.

“In the United States we have more money today than we ever had. We have the highest child poverty rate of any industrialised country. However, for the UPR no one from the government mentioned poverty,” Dike commented to IPS.

The Cuban delegates addressed the issue, urging the United States to guarantee the right of all residents to decent housing, food, healthcare and education, in order to reduce the poverty that affects 48 million of the country’s 319 million people.

A number of countries asked the United States to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in effect since 1976 and considered one of the pillars of the U.N. human rights system.

They also pointed out that the United States has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Nor has it ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Furthermore, it has not recognised the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, or the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) conventions on forced labour, minimum age for admission to employment, domestic workers, and discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

McLeod also said that her country is not currently considering the ratification of the Rome Statute, which created the International Criminal Court.

Dakwar said the debate in the UPR highlighted “the issue of the lack of a fair criminal justice system that is being demonstrated through the stops and frisks, racial profiling, racial studies in the death penalty. You see it in the police violence and killing of unarmed African-Americans with no accountability.

“Its inhuman and unfair system of immigration needs to again be brought in line with human rights…That means…no detention of migrants, and ending migrants’ family detention,” he added.

Another of the main recommendations to the United States is that it desist from targeted killings through drones.

“The United States continues to violate human rights in the name of national security and it needs to roll back these policies and bring them in line with the U.S. constitution and international law,” Dakwar argued.

“Also in the domestic system we have surveillance of Muslim communities. There is a guidance by the Department of Justice that they allow the use of informants within communities, particularly Muslim and Middle Eastern communities,” he added.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

The United Nations rapporteur for minorities has anti-Roma and anti-‘Gypsy’ bias in her sights.

Apr. 8 marked International Roma Day, and United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Rita Izsák used the occasion to call for greater action on stamping out bias against Roma.

“Discrimination and racism against Roma come in many different forms, ranging from silent indifference to hate speech and violence against individuals or entire communities […]. Unfortunately this has led to a desensitisation of the public, and to the resurgence of unacceptable myths about Roma criminality, unworthiness and inferiority,” Izsák said in a statement published on the website of the U.N. Office in Geneva.

“It is due time for our societies to stop tolerating any public discourse that perpetuates stereotypical, racist, hateful or discriminatory views about Roma, and take effective action against such discourses.  We must reject anti-Gypsyism in all its forms.”

Izsák will present a comprehensive study of the human rights situation of Roma worldwide, with a particular focus on the phenomenon of anti-Gypsyism, to the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) in June.

In her statement, she highlighted the need for media to avoid perpetuating “sensationalist” coverage of negative stereotypes of people of Gypsy and Roma heritage, as well as for political and social leaders to work harder in eradicating biases against those groups.

“There is an urgent need for strengthened political will, especially at the national and local level, and an openness to learn from past mistakes in policies and planning… in order to break the vicious cycle of stigma, discrimination and marginalization,” Izsák said.

She also raised concerns about “the lack of Roma representation” in political and decision-making bodies.

The issue of how those of Roma and Gypsy heritage are treated has made recent headlines worldwide. In April 2014, a leaked note from a Paris police chief ordered his officers to work “day and night” to “systematically evict” Roma families from Paris streets.

An Amnesty International report in 2014 also accused European states including France, the Czech Republic and Greece of failing to protect Roma from racism and violence. Amnesty said the estimated 12 million Roma living in Europe were “living with the daily threat of forced eviction […], police harassment and violent attacks.”

Most of France’s 20,000 Roma lived in extreme poverty, according to the report, with “little or no access to basic services, such as water and sanitation and at constant risk of forced evictions.”

Violent anti-Roma protests, police harassment and violence, evictions and arbitrary detention of Roma were detailed in the report.

Follow Josh Butler on Twitter: @JoshButler

The Qassem family from Beit Hanoun in Gaza, civilians whose home was targeted by Israeli air strikes during the 2007/2008 Israel-Gaza war, leaving them homeless. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
GAZA, Mar 30 2015 (IPS)

The U.N. investigation into Israel’s devastating military campaign against Gaza, from July to August 2014, has been delayed until June and in the interim Israel and the Palestinians are waging a media war to win the moral narrative as to why so many Palestinian civilians were killed during the bloody conflict.

The postponement of the investigation was announced at the Mar. 23 U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) meeting in Geneva.

Israel says it went out of its way to avoid civilian casualties but its critics, including Israeli human rights organisations, have questioned this claim.

“The ferocity of destruction and high proportion of civilian lives lost in Gaza cast serious doubts over Israel’s adherence to international humanitarian law principles of proportionality, distinction and precautions in attack,” Makarim Wibisono, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967, told the UNHCR meeting.“The ferocity of destruction and high proportion of civilian lives lost in Gaza cast serious doubts over Israel's adherence to international humanitarian law principles of proportionality, distinction and precautions in attack" – Makarim Wibisono, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967

During the war over 2,300 Palestinians were killed, the majority of them civilians including more than 500 children, and over 10,000 injured. On the Israeli side, six civilians and 67 soldiers were killed.

Many of the Palestinian civilians killed died after Israel targeted residential buildings in the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of Palestinians inside as the buildings collapsed on them.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem released a report in January titled Black Flag: The Legal and Moral Implications of the Policy of Attacking Residential Buildings in the Gaza Strip, Summer 2014.

The report focuses on the policy that the Israeli military implemented of strikes on homes, attempting to explain if and how “policymakers’ claims about Israel’s commitment to International Humanitarian Law (IHL) provisions comport with the policy of attacking residential buildings.”

Damage to residential buildings was enormous, with 18,000 homes either destroyed or badly damaged. More than 100,000 Palestinians were left homeless and with little to no reconstruction taking place, most of these Gazans remain displaced.

B’Tselem investigated 70 incidents involving attacks on civilian homes which killed 606 Palestinians, half of whom were women, 93 babies and children under the age of 5, 129 children aged 5 to 14, 42 teenagers and 37 elderly Palestinians.

B’Tselem said that a number of the cases it examined indicated that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) actions contravened IHL.

“A military objective, the only legitimate target for attack by parties to hostilities, is defined as one that makes an effective contribution to military action whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralisation, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage to the attacking side,” said the rights group.

“Over the course of the fighting that took place in the summer, both government officials and top military commanders refrained from spelling out the specific objective of most of the attacks.

“Instead, the IDF spokesperson provided only general figures on the number of strikes carried out each day against what the spokesperson defined as ‘terror sites’.”

The rights group added that the IDF also appeared to change its definition as the war progressed, with many of the residential homes targeted allegedly belonging to Hamas operatives.

Kamal Qassem, 43, his wife Iman, and their five children aged 6 to 12, from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza were forced to flee to an emergency U.N. shelter after their house was destroyed by Israeli bombs, which targeted their homes over two nights during the war.

“My wife Iman was injured during the bombing and spent two nights in hospital. She also requires regular hospital treatment for kidney problems,” Qassem told IPS

“My daughter Shadha, 9, was severely traumatised during the aerial assault and now suffers from epilepsy and soils her sheets at night. None of us were fighters.”

However, Israel’s newly appointed military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot’s contribution to the Dahiya Doctrine, established during the second Israel-Lebanon war in 2006, could provide some answers to the immense destruction wrought on Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.

The Dahiya Doctrine is a military strategy that envisages the destruction of the civilian infrastructure of hostile regimes, and endorses the employment of disproportionate force to secure that end.

The doctrine is named after a southern suburb in Beirut with large apartment buildings which were flattened by the IDF during the 2006 war.

“What happened in the Dahiva quarter of Beurut in 2006 would happen in every village from which shots were fired in the direction of Israel,” stated Eizenkot.

“We will wield disproportionate power and cause immense damage and destruction.”

Former Rapporteur to the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, wrote that under the doctrine, “the civilian infrastructure of adversaries such as Hamas or Hezbollah are treated as permissible military targets, which is not only an overt violation of the most elementary norms of the law of war and of universal morality, but an avowal of a doctrine of violence that needs to be called by its proper name: state terrorism.”

Members of the U.N. fact-finding mission into the 2007/2008 Israel-Gaza war suggested that the Dahiya Doctrine had been employed while other analysts added it was also behind Israel’s 2014 military campaign.

Meanwhile, Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket fire on Israeli civilian towns, preceding last year’s war and one of the main reasons for Israel launching its assault on Gaza, could resume again should the siege on Gaza continue with no political breakthrough on the horizon – an ominous sign for Gaza’s civilians.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Julian Assange in one of his rare public appearances in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has been in hiding since June 2012. Credit: Creative Commons

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jan 30 2015 (IPS)

There is a window of hope, thanks to a U.N. human rights body, for a solution to the diplomatic asylum of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, holed up in the embassy of Ecuador in London for the past two and a half years.

Authorities in Sweden, which is seeking the Australian journalist’s extradition to face allegations of sexual assault, admitted there is a possibility that measures could be taken to jumpstart the stalled legal proceedings against Assange.

The head of Assange’s legal defence team, former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, told IPS that in relation to this case “we have expressed satisfaction that the Swedish state“ has accepted the proposals of several countries.

The prominent Spanish lawyer and international jurist was referring to proposals set forth by Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador, Slovakia and Uruguay.

The final report by the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR), adopted Thursday Jan. 28 in Geneva, Switzerland, contains indications that a possible understanding among the different countries concerned might be on the horizon.

The UPR is a mechanism of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council to examine the human rights performance of all U.N. member states.

The situation of Assange, a journalist, computer programmer and activist born in Australia in 1971, was introduced in Sweden’s UPR by Ecuador, the country that granted him diplomatic asylum in its embassy in London, and by several European and Latin American nations.

The head of the Swedish delegation to the UPR, Annika Söder, state secretary for political affairs at Sweden’s foreign ministry, told IPS that “This is a very complex matter in which the government can only do a few things.”

Söder said that in Sweden, Assange is “suspected of crimes, rape, sexual molestation in accordance with Swedish law. And that’s why the prosecutor in Sweden wants to conduct the primary investigation.

“We are aware of Mr. Assange’s being in the embassy of Ecuador and we hope that there will be ways to deal with the legal process in one way or the other. But it is up to the legal authorities to respond,” she said.

Assange’s legal defence team complains that Sweden’s public prosecutor’s office is delaying the legal proceedings and refuses to question him by telephone, email, video link or in writing.

Garzón noted that parallel to the lack of action by the Swedish prosecutor’s office, there is a secret U.S. legal process against Assange and other members of Wikileaks, the organisation he created in 2006.

“The origin of the U.S. legal proceedings against Assange was the mass publication by Wikileaks of documents, in many cases sensitive ones, which affected the United States,” said Garzón.

Wikileaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and other classified U.S. documents revealed practices by Washington that put it in an awkward position with other governments.

Assange sought refuge in the embassy after exhausting options in British courts to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning related to allegations of rape and sexual molestation, of which he says he is innocent. He has not been charged with a crime in Sweden and is worried that if he is extradited to that country he will be sent to the United States, where he is under investigation for releasing secret government documents.

If the legal process in Sweden begins to move forward, there would be a possibility for him to be able to leave the Ecuadorean embassy, where he took refuge on Jun. 19, 2012, and give up the diplomatic asylum he was granted by the government of Rafael Correa on Aug. 16, 2012.

In the UPR report, Sweden promised to examine recommendations made by other countries and to provide a response before the next U.N. Human Rights Council session, which starts Jun. 15.

Garzón has urged the Swedish government to specify a timeframe for the legal action against Assange, as the delegation from Ecuador recommended in the UPR.

“The Human Rights Committee, another specialised U.N. body, stipulates that precise timeframes must be established for putting a detained person at the disposal of a judge,” he pointed out.

Söder told IPS that Sweden’s legal system does not set any deadline for the prosecutor to complete the pretrial examination phase, as reflected in the Assange case.

Garzón is also asking Sweden to introduce, as soon as possible, “measures to ensure that the legal proceedings are carried out in accordance with standards that guarantee the rights of individuals, concretely the right to effective judicial recourse and legal proceedings without undue delays.”

He also called for the adoption of administrative and judicial measures to make investigations before the courts more effective. With respect to this, he mentioned “the practice of measures of inquiry abroad, in line with international cooperation mechanisms.”

In addition, the international jurist demanded measures to ensure that people deprived of their freedom are provided with legal guarantees in accordance with international standards.

The Swedish delegation agreed to study a recommendation by Argentina to “take concrete measures to ensure that guarantees of non-extradition will be given to any person under the control of the Swedish authorities while they are considered refugees by a third country,” in this case Ecuador.

These should include legislative measures, if necessary.

This is important because Assange is facing the threat that the Swedish or British authorities could accept an extradition request from the United States for charges of espionage, which carry heavy penalties.

In his comments to IPS, Garzón said he was “disappointed” that the Swedish state has not accepted one of Ecuador’s recommendations.

He was referring to the request that Sweden streamline international cooperation mechanisms on the part of the judiciary and the prosecutor’s office in order to ensure the right to effective legal remedy, specifically in cases where the person is protected by the decision to grant asylum or refuge.

It was stressed in the UPR that the right to asylum or refuge is considered a fundamental right, and must be respected and taken into account, making it compatible with the right to legal defence.

The director-general of legal affairs in Sweden’s foreign ministry, Anders Rönquist, argued that there is no international convention on diplomatic asylum.

The only one referring to that issue is the inter-American convention, he said, adding that the International Court of Justice in The Hague does not require recognition of diplomatic asylum.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

The United States and the EU have warned they would not cooperate with an intergovernmental working group (IGWG) which is to be established to lay down ground rules for negotiating a proposed treaty to prevent human rights abuses by transnational corporations. Credit: Omid Memarian/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 28 2014 (IPS)

The United States and the 28-member European Union (EU) have assiduously promoted – and vigourously preached – one of the basic tenets of Western multi-party democracy: majority rules.

But at the United Nations, the 29 member states have frequently abandoned that principle when it insists on “consensus” on crucial decisions relating to the U.N. budget – or when it is clearly outvoted in the 193-member General Assembly or its committee rooms."The division of the votes clearly shows that the countries who are host to a lot of TNCs, such as the EU, as well as Norway and the U.S., are against this proposal." -- Anne van Schaik

That’s exactly what happened Thursday at the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva which adopted, by majority vote, a proposal to negotiate a legally-binding treaty to prevent human rights abuses by transnational corporations (TNCs) and the world’s business conglomerates.

But following the vote, the United States and the EU, have warned they would not cooperate with an intergovernmental working group (IGWG) which is to be established to lay down ground rules for negotiating the proposed treaty.

Stephen Townley, the U.S. representative in the HRC, told delegates: “The United States will not participate in this IGWG, and we encourage others to do the same.”

There are also a host of practical questions about how an internationally binding instrument would apply to corporations, which are not subjects of international law, and how states would implement such an instrument, said Townley, special assistant to the legal adviser at the U.S. State Department.

The vote was 20 for, 14 against and 13 abstentions in the 47-member HRC. The United States and EU members, including France, Germany, UK, Italy, Ireland, Austria, Estonia and the Czech Republic, along with South Korea and Japan, voted against the resolution.

Spearheaded by Ecuador and South Africa, the resolution received positive votes from China, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan, Philippines and Algeria, amongst others.

The Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, along with Mexico, Peru and the Maldives, abstained.

Anne van Schaik, accountable finance campaigner with Friends of the Earth Europe, told IPS the voting list “makes clear we are up against powerful forces”.

“Who will not back away from using old bullying techniques?” she asked.

She said the EU has clearly stated it will not cooperate in implementing the proposal.

And after the vote, the United States said this legally binding instrument will not be binding for those who vote against it.

“So we can expect some fierce opposition,” Schaik said, even as the IGWG plans to hold its first meeting sometime next year.

“But we are cheerful because it is not every day public interest wins over corporate interests which are backed by the EU and the U.S.,” she added.

Both United States and the EU have argued that the three-year-old U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights is adequate as a yardstick to monitor the business practices – and malpractices – of corporations and big business.

“We have not given states adequate time and space to implement the Guiding Principles,” Townley told delegates.

He said “while we share and appreciate the concerns expressed by some delegations and civil society colleagues that we need to do more to improve access to remedy for victims of business-related human rights abuses, our concern is that this initiative [for a legally binding treaty] will have exactly the opposite effect.”

Philip Lynch, director of International Service for Human Rights, told IPS that in order to be effective, it is crucial that any treaty on business and human rights be negotiated with input from all relevant stakeholders and that it cover all business enterprises, not just transnational corporations.

“We consider it very important that the European Union participates in this negotiation process,” he said, since the EU is both the headquarters for many corporations, and global leaders in the implementation of the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

“We also hope that the negotiation of the treaty can complement and build on the consensus underpinning the Guiding Principles, which enjoy strong EU support,” he added.

Speaking of the proposed treaty, Schaik told IPS this is something that Friends of the Earth has campaigned for years, if not decades.

“We have always wanted the U.N. to take responsibility to develop such a mechanism, since they are the only international democratic decision-making body that is able to work on such a proposal.”

So, it is better than, for example, having legislation adopted by some countries, or regional bodies (if this would have been feasible at all), she added.

Secondly, Schaik said, what is very positive as well is that in the resolution, a roadmap is already laid out for the first steps of this working group.

“The division of the votes clearly shows that the countries who are host to a lot of TNCs, such as the EU, as well as Norway and the U.S., are against this proposal,” she noted.

Asked how the Western opposition could be countered, she pointed out the U.S. warned, even before the vote, that countries who voted against it would not be obliged to respect the resolution.

“This is of course total nonsense, but it does mean that both civil society, as well as the countries who voted in favour, will have to do what they can in order for this working group to be successful.”

She said: “We have built at very short time a coalition of more than 610 organisations and 400 individuals.”

She said the treaty alliance is already making plans on how to follow up on this victory, “and I think particularly for groups in Europe, the U.S. and Norway there is an important task to keep pressuring their countries to respect the resolution.

“We will campaign, set up email actions, present research, organise speaker tours and take to the streets, if necessary, to ensure the working group will be successful,” she said.

A child labours at a sweatshop in India. Credit: photo stock

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 24 2014 (IPS)

When the United Nations began negotiating a Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations (TNCs) back in the 1970s, the proposal never got off the ground because of vigourous opposition both from the powerful business community and its Western allies.

But a move to resurrect this proposal – through the creation of a new international legally-binding treaty to hold TNCs accountable for human rights abuses – has been gathering momentum at the current session of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, which concludes Friday."Corporate actors have been extremely successful in implementing public relations strategies that have helped to present business enterprises as good corporate citizens." -- Jens Martens

Still, it has triggered the same political replay of the 1970s: strong opposition from business interests and Western nations, this time specifically the 28-member European Union (EU).

Jens Martens, director of the Global Policy Forum Europe, told IPS there is a heated debate in the UNHRC about establishing an intergovernmental working group to negotiate the proposed legally binding instrument on TNCs.

“So, the current discussion is not about the substance of a code of conduct or treaty but on the process,” he added.

There are currently two draft resolutions tabled at the UNHRC session in Geneva: one sponsored by Ecuador and South Africa asking the UNHRC to establish an intergovernmental working group: a proposal supported by developing nations of the Group of 77 (G77) and a coalition of more than 500 non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

A second draft resolution, sponsored by Norway, Russia, Argentina and Ghana, supports the existing working group on business and human rights and asks for extending its mandate by another three years: a draft also supported, among others, by the United States and the EU.

Martens, who co-authored a recent study on “Corporate Influence on the Business and Human Rights Agenda of the United Nations,” said “corporate actors have been extremely successful in implementing public relations strategies that have helped to present business enterprises as good corporate citizens.”

He said they have also given the impression of “seeking dialogue with governments, the United Nations and decent concerned stakeholders, and able to implement environment, social and human rights standards through voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.”

Martens said the U.N.’s much-ballyhooed Global Compact and the U.N.’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights became prime examples of an allegedly pragmatic approach based on consensus, dialogue and partnership with the corporate sector in contrast to regulatory approaches to hold corporations accountable.

Alberto Villarreal, trade and investment campaigner at Friends of the Earth Uruguay, told IPS that by recognising environmental activism in all its expressions as a legitimate defence of human rights, “we can contribute to the struggle of environmental rights defenders and keep them safe.”

The London-based Global Exchange, an international human rights organisation, has put out a list of the “top 10 corporate criminals”, accusing them of being complicit in violations of human rights and the environment.

The companies identified include Shell/Royal Dutch Petroleum, Nike, Blackwater International, Syngenta, Barrick Gold and Nestle.

The charges include unlivable working conditions for factory workers, lack of worker’s rights, pollution, child labour, toxic dumping, unfair labour practices, discrimination, and destruction of indigenous lands for mining and oil exploration.

Anne van Schaik, accountable finance campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, said many countries support tabling a resolution for a binding treaty, but the EU has warned that if it gets adopted it will refuse to discuss it.

“The EU is therefore effectively boycotting the UNHRC and standing up for corporate interests instead of human rights,” she added.

Asked if there would be a decision at the current UNHRC session, Schaik told IPS, “We are unsure if this issue will be resolved on Friday.”

She said the EU’s “very obstructive approach” means it will not participate in the intergovernmental process of creating a treaty if the resolution is in fact adopted, “thereby effectively undermining the democratic decision-making process at the United Nations.”

Schaik said the Norwegian resolution states there should be a discussion on the issue of access to remedy, judicial and non-judicial, for victims of business-related human rights abuses on the agenda of the Forum of Businesses and Human Rights.

Effectively that means that at this week’s session, there will be a discussion, but there are no consequences or follow-up plans for what happens after that, she added.

Schaik said Ecuador proposes to “establish an open-ended intergovernmental working group with the mandate to elaborate an international legally binding instrument on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with respect to human rights.”

This means there will be a new instrument which will state obligations for transnational companies, which is obviously much more far reaching than a discussion at a forum at the United Nations, she said.

The study on the human rights treaty, co-authored by Martens, focuses specifically on the responses by TNCs and their leading interest groups to the various U.N. initiatives, specifies the key actors and their objectives. It also highlights the interplay between business demands and the evolution of the regulatory debates at the United Nations.

The study provides an indication of the degree of influence that corporate actors exert and their ability, in cooperation with some powerful U.N. member states, to prevent international binding rules for TNCs at the United Nations.

Meanwhile, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders has urged the UNHRC to promote the adoption of clear and binding rules on online surveillance and censorship.

“Businesses sell technology to authoritarian regimes that allows them to carry out large-scale online surveillance of their population,” the group said.

In a statement released this week, the Paris-based organisation said this technology has been, and still is, used in Libya, Egypt, Morocco and Ethiopia to arrest, imprison and torture.

The companies that provide this technology cannot claim to be unaware of this, it added.

The U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) is being urged to back a resolution next month to draw up a binding accord that would ensure both accountability and mechanisms for redress by victims of corporate rights abuse. Credit: Omid Memarian/IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, May 7 2014 (IPS)

Some 500 global groups are calling for action by governments next month to jumpstart the process of drafting an international treaty to address rights abuses by multinational corporations, following on a related proposal by Ecuador and others.

On Wednesday, a global network of civil society groups known as the Treaty Alliance called on members of the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) to back a resolution next month to draw up a binding accord that would ensure both accountability and mechanisms for redress by victims of corporate rights abuse. The council will hold its 26th session Jun. 9-27 in Geneva."We believe there is no greater threat to human rights and democracy in the world today than unchecked corporate power.” -- David Pred

The Treaty Alliance’s joint statement, signed by more than 150 organisations and representing hundreds more, underscores “the need to enhance the international legal framework, including international remedies, applicable to State action to protect rights in the context of business operations, and mindful of the urgent need to ensure access to justice and remedy and reparations for victims of corporate human rights abuse.”

The statement also calls on member states to work towards a binding agreement that “affirms the applicability of human rights obligations to the operations of transnational corporations and other business enterprises” and requires states to “provide for legal liability for business enterprises for acts or omissions that infringe human rights”.

The alliance is urging the creation of a supra-national body to oversee any eventual treaty’s implementation.

“A system of binding rules to hold corporations legally liable for violations of human rights is an idea whose time has come,” David Pred, the managing director of Inclusive Development International, a watchdog group and member of the Treaty Alliance, told IPS.

“Transnational corporations have been literally getting away with murder for far too long, but rather than reining them in, our governments are ceding big businesses ever more power through free trade agreements and investment treaties. We have joined this call because we believe there is no greater threat to human rights and democracy in the world today than unchecked corporate power.”

85-country support

For decades calls have been made for a strengthened international framework on corporate rights obligations and their redress. This movement has been partly successful, culminating in the 2011 endorsement by the U.N. HRC of what are known as the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

While seen as a major step forward by many, the Guiding Principles were hobbled from the beginning in that they are voluntary.

“Ultimately there are no means to ensure enforcement of the Guiding Principles, and what we’ve seen since 2011 is that the implementation of the Guiding Principles has not worked as a barrier to human rights violations by trans-national corporations,” Gonzalo Berron, an associate fellow at the Transnational Institute and a Treaty Alliance organiser, told IPS.

“We’re not saying that we don’t want the Guiding Principles to be applied and promoted – this is a parallel process, but we think that the sooner we start discussing a binding code the better. And now we have an opportunity to move forward with that.”

Indeed, advocates of a binding treaty say the current environment, in the lead-up to the HRC’s June session, is uniquely conducive.

“Before we’ve generally seen mobilisation among affected communities and specific NGOs, but for the first time you’re now seeing this huge alliance of different campaigns – this is something new at the international level,” Berron says.

This momentum can be traced to last September. At that time, during the HRC’s 24th session, a group of 85 countries put out a joint statement noting that the Guiding Principles are “only a partial answer” and emphasising “the necessity of moving forward towards a legally binding framework to regulate the work of transnational corporations”.

Supporters note that the letter constitutes the first time in decades that the issue has been initiated directly by U.N. member states.

“This more recent momentum stems from the will of the representatives of many countries in many regions, not by U.N. entities, which has greater democratic meaning and significance inside and outside the United Nations,” Dominic Renfrey, a programme officer with the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, told IPS.

Member states sit on the HRC for three-year stints. Renfrey notes that the current composition of the 47-member council could be an advantage for supporters of a treaty push.

“At this moment a number of members of the Human Rights Council are states that understand better than most what the impact on their people is from poorly regulated development,” he says. “As such these states stand to benefit from an international system that better protects the human rights of their people, while ensuring a more sustainable and respectful form of investment.”

Enforcement quandary

Still, the idea of a treaty isn’t being embraced by all parties, including strong supporters of strengthened corporate rights obligations and mechanisms for accountability and redress.

“While we are closely following these developments, we remain focused on the critical gaps that exist in ensuring that governments live up to their duty to protect human rights,” Amol Mehra, director of the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable, a global coalition, told IPS.

“Such gaps can be meaningfully addressed through regulation of corporations to prevent potential human rights violations both at home and abroad, and through strong remedial measures, including legal avenues of accountability, when harms do occur.”

Further, the leading figure behind the U.N. Guiding Principles has been urging caution in the push towards a treaty. In part, says John Ruggie, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on business and human rights, the problem is that the issues involved in corporate rights obligations are too vast for a single treaty.

Likewise, Ruggie wrote last week, there are some 80,000 multinational corporations in existence and millions of subsidiaries, and official reporting on these companies’ adherence to the treaty would be well beyond the capacity of most governments. Such concerns would be echoed for any supra-national body created to offer related oversight.

The fundamental problems of enforcement would be particularly exacerbated by governments’ hesitancy to prosecute for abuses committed outside of their territories – a significant problem given that treaties are consensus documents.

“[T]o add value any new treaty enforcement provision would have to involve extraterritorial jurisdiction,” Ruggie wrote.

“Some UN human rights treaty bodies have urged the home states of multinationals to provide greater extraterritorial protection against corporate-related human rights abuses … But state conduct generally makes it clear that they do not regard this to be an acceptable means to address violations of the entire array of internationally recognized human rights.”

Uzbek leader Islam Karimov has taken cosmetic steps lately, such as voicing support for probing journalism, to try to put a more human face on his regime. But the true nature of the Uzbek government can be discerned in a treason case against a former military intelligence official.

Lt. Col. Sanjar Ismailov, a 43-year-old former acting head of Uzbek army intelligence, was arrested in late June 2005 and early the following year was convicted on charges of treason, abuse of power and illegal ammunition storage. He was tried in connection to a 2003 incident in which he shared information about Afghan militant groups with the Russian military attaché in Tashkent.

In appealing his conviction, Ismailov insisted that his actions were consistent with his official duties. Russia at the time was (and still is, sort of) Uzbekistan’s strategic ally, not adversary. And, Ismailov contended, the material that he passed along was encrypted and he needed the help of Russian specialists to crack it.

To buttress his argument that he was acting with Uzbekistan’s best interests in mind, he pointed out that he handed over the information to the Russian official in the Uzbek Defence Ministry’s protocol room.

Ismailov’s wife, Natalia Bondar, has claimed that the charges against her husband constitute a case of retaliation. His troubles, she added, began after he criticised another senior Uzbek Defense Ministry official, who supposedly had been given information that Islamic militants were intent on fomenting an uprising in Andijan in the spring of 2005, but did not do anything with the information.

The Andijan massacre in May 2005, subsequently embroiled Tashkent in international controversy.

An Uzbek military tribunal rejected Ismailov’s appeal in 2007. The following year, Bondar brought a complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Council, contending that her husband was deprived of basic rights during his trial and subsequent appeal.

The council finally ruled on Ismailov’s case in March of 2011, and it was only recently that Bondar became aware of the U.N. body’s ruling, coming across it by accident while surfing the Internet. Part of the reason for the lag between the time when Bondar filed her complaint and the council’s decision appears to be the Uzbek government’s lack of response to U.N. officials’ requests for information relating to the case.

The council found that Ismailov’s rights were indeed violated: among the violations was the fact that he was not informed of the reason for his arrest, nor the charges against him, at the time he was taken into custody. The council also found that he did not have adequate time to prepare his defence and was improperly prevented from using privately retained legal counsel.

The council decision said Uzbek authorities must provide Bondar, who submitted the complaint on behalf of her husband, with an “effective” remedy.

“The State party is also under an obligation to consider a retrial … or release, as well as appropriate reparation, including compensation,” the U.N. body’s decision stated. “The State party is also under an obligation to take steps to prevent similar violations occurring in the future.”

The council mandated that it should “receive from the State party, within 180 days, information about the measures taken to give effect to the council’s views.”

Bondar told EurasiaNet.org that Uzbek authorities have taken no action that she is aware of to comply with the council’s decision. “The decision was made but nobody controls its fulfillment,” she said. “So things aren’t moving and nobody knows when everything will be solved. Our agencies, as always, get off with runarounds.”

The U.N. rights council lacks any mechanism to compel member states to recognise and implement its rulings. Human rights groups consistently rank Uzbekistan as one of the most repressive states on earth, and it should be noted that Ismailov case is far from an isolated occurrence. Hundreds, if not thousands of prisoners in Uzbekistan are believed to be estimated to be held on political grounds.

In late 2005, Ismailov had five years taken off what originally had been a 20-year sentence. But his chances at present for an early release appear slim, Bondar indicated.

“He [Ismailov] is continually assigned responsibility for violations and, as a malicious violator, he is not covered by amnesties,” Bondar explained.

Ironically, the once high-ranking Defence Ministry official who Bondar alleges had her husband framed later was himself arrested on fraud charges and handed a nine-year prison term. But he was subsequently amnestied, Bondar added.

She is at a loss to explain why Ismailov remains a target of persecution. “Maybe everybody is afraid of taking responsibility for his release, or I simply do not know that another person who was interested in his arrest,” she said.

*Editor’s note: Marina Kozlova is a freelance journalist focusing on Uzbekistan.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

The eve of the much anticipated Sinhala and Tamil New Year, celebrated across the island of Sri Lanka in mid-April to mark the end of the harvest season, was marred by a series of attacks, reminding everyone that “peace” does not mean a lack of violence.

A new U.N. resolution on Sri Lanka suggests that international pressure on the government will not diminish any time soon. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

On Apr. 13, the printing presses of the Jaffna-based Tamil language ‘Uthayan’ newspaper came under attack, reportedly the 37^th time the paper or those attached to it have been targeted.

In 2006, unidentified gunmen killed two of the publication’s employees, and during the last stages of the civil war that unfolded here in early 2009, some of the staff members lived and worked from its premises, too scared to step out of doors.

About two weeks before this latest incident, an Uthayan distribution centre in the northern town of Kilinochchi was attacked. Critics say the newspaper, owned by an opposition Tamil parliamentarian, has been partial to Tamil separatists. The government has described the damage on the distribution centre as an “inside hatchet job”, claims rejected by the publisher.

Further south, a group of Buddhist extremists calling themselves the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) have been spearheading a campaign of hatred towards Muslims, inciting mobs to attack Muslim-owned shops and business establishments.

In the beginning of April tensions flared when police broke up a candlelight vigil in front of the main office of the BBS. Some of those who said they had simply come to spread a message of peace were either arrested or verbally assaulted by the police.

These incidents come barely a month after the passage of the second successive U.S.-sponsored resolution on Sri Lanka at the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva in mid-March.

The resolution calls on the Sri Lanka government “to conduct an independent and credible investigation into allegations of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law” committed during its conclusive war with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009 — but stops short of specifying punitive action if the government fails to comply.

Rights groups and aid workers who witnessed the final battles here in 2009 say the fighting displaced over 200,000 people and killed at least 40,000, many of them civilians. The government maintains there were “no civilian casualties”.

“This year's resolution makes clearer than before the international community's deep concern about serious ongoing human rights violations and the need for a proper and independent investigation into allegations."
These unanswered questions threatened to divide the wounded country still further and elicited an international outcry. Finally, in May 2010, Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse appointed the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) to investigate the conduct of the armed forces during the war.

The Commission handed its final report to Rajapakse in November 2011. But in February this year, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said the government has been “selective” in responding to the recommendations put forth by the LLRC.

Now, again, the resolution from Geneva leaves the onus for action in the hands of a government that has time and again dismissed statements and warnings from the international community as an “infringement” on Sri Lankan sovereignty.

Another disappointment was that, despite initial talk of requesting permission for Pillay to be granted full access to probe allegations of on-going rights abuse on the island, the adopted resolution simply calls on the Sri Lankan government to carry out its own investigations that are up to “international standards”.

In what was seen as a major watering down of the text, all references to “unfettered” access for U.N. special rapporteurs were replaced in the final document with a request that the government “cooperate” with special mandate holders and respond to outstanding requests for visits. All eight U.N. special rapporteurs are currently awaiting invitations to visit the country.

Rights activists say it is unlikely that the situation in Sri Lanka will change overnight – it will take time for international pressure to have an impact and that, too, only if it is sustained.

U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka Michele J. Sison told a group of journalists on Apr. 8 that the U.S., as the main backer of the resolution, is keeping a close eye on the situation on the ground, warning that “more serious” measures could be on the cards if the Rajapakse government fails to act on international concerns.

“The United States remains particularly concerned about threats against, and attacks on, media outlets in Sri Lanka,” she said, in reference to the attack on the Uthayan premises in Jaffna.

“As we examine next steps, we will renew our consideration of all mechanisms available, both in the Human Rights Council and beyond,” Sison told the Foreign Correspondents’ Association, though she declined to elaborate on what those “mechanisms” would be.

Other experts and rights defenders have issued similar warnings of sterner action. Alan Keenan, Sri Lanka project director of the London-based International Crisis Group (ICG), told IPS, “Sri Lanka can ignore these concerns only at its long term peril. And if the government does continue to ignore these international concerns, I expect the pressure will grow.”

Ruki Fernando, of the Rights Now Collective, a national advocacy body, told IPS that the resolution should not be taken in isolation but evaluated as an indication of persistent international scrutiny of Sri Lanka.

“The resolution acknowledges and expresses concern about serious ongoing violations and calls for more action by the government, including involvement of minorities and civil society and credible and independent investigations into allegations of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law,” he said.

He added that some crucial demands that were included in the original draft of the resolution but later withdrawn – such as “unfettered” access for U.N. special mandate holders – could be included in future resolutions.

“This year’s resolution makes clearer than before the international community’s deep concern about serious ongoing human rights violations and the need for a proper and independent investigation into allegations,” according to Keenan.

The international community’s dedication to holding Sri Lanka accountable to global human rights standards will be reflected in the November meeting of heads of Commonwealth member states scheduled to be held here; already there have been calls for a boycott of the meeting, or a shifting of the location.

The UK, which included Sri Lanka as a country of concern in its latest Human Rights and Democracy Report, said that it would do all it can to “encourage Sri Lanka to demonstrate adherence to Commonwealth values of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, particularly ahead of… the meeting in November”.

(END)