HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL ADVISORY COMMITTEE DISCUSSES PROMOTION OF A DEMOCRATIC AND EQUITABLE INTERNATIONAL ORDER AND MISSING PERSONS
The Human Rights Council Advisory Committee this morning discussed requests from the Human Rights Council to the Committee concerning the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order and the issue of missing persons.
Susan Mathews of the Research and Right to Development Division of the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights noted that the Human Rights Council in a resolution had affirmed that people had the right to a democratic and equitable international order, which also required the right of every human person and all peoples to development, as a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human rights. The High Commissioner had accorded key emphasis on the mandate of the right to development. Since 2004, the right to development mandate had moved in an increasingly constructive direction, with a shift in focus from conceptual debates to practical operationalization.
Advisory Committee Experts discussed whether definitions should be found for issues mentioned in the Human Rights Council resolution that could be accepted by all States or whether more controversial issues had to be tackled. One Expert believed that the Committee should put emphasis on whether one should recognize the right to development as a human right or not. Another Expert said it was a democratic imperative to enshrine the rule of law, democracy and human rights at the regional level. Strengthening the role of the International Court of Justice was a way of promoting an equitable international order.
Speaking on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order were the following Experts of the Advisory Committee: Emmanuel Decaux, Chen Shiqiu, Wolfgang Stefan Heinz, Halima Embarek Warzazi, Vladimir Kartashkin and Chung Chinsung.
Also speaking this morning on this issue was the delegation of Brazil and a representative of Indian Movement Tupaj Amaru.
Introducing the issue of missing persons, James Heenan of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that States held the primary responsibility for missing persons and families had the right to know the fate of their relatives. States had to undertake measures in a timely manner to establish the fate of missing persons. Data collection, traditional and newly developed forensic methods were especially important in addressing the phenomenon of missing persons. OHCHR would organize a panel discussion at the September session of the Human Rights Council on the subject of missing persons.
In the general discussion, Advisory Committee Experts wondered if they could ask the Human Rights Council to enlarge the mandate so that they could also analyse the current situation throughout the world. It could be important to implement an action oriented recommendation asking to make use of existing international monitoring mechanisms to carry out inspection visits to secret detention places where missing persons could be held. They should not restrict the mandate to armed conflicts and should go beyond that. An Expert pointed out that the definition of missing persons was different from enforced disappearances. Why was the Committee not supposed to include victims of enforced disappearances in its consideration of the issue?
Speaking on the issue of missing persons were the following Experts of the Advisory Committee:
Ansar Ahmed Burney, Latif Hüseynov, Wolfgang Stefan Heinz, Purificacion V. Quisumbing, Vladimir Kartashkin, Halima Embarek Warzazi and Emmanuel Decaux.
Also speaking this morning on this issue were the delegations of France, Russian Federation, Nigeria and Mexico. The following non-governmental organizations also took the floor: Indian Council of South America and World Association for Schools as an Instrument for Peace.
When the Committee meets at 3 p.m. this afternoon, it will discuss requests to the Advisory Committee from the Human Rights Council concerning the human rights of persons with disabilities.
Discussion on Requests to the Advisory Committee from the Human Rights Council Concerning the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order
SUSAN MATHEWS, of the Research and Right to Development Division of the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, introducing the topic of the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, said that at its eight session, the Human Rights Council requested, through resolution 8/5, the human rights treaty bodies, the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights and the mechanisms of the Human Rights Council and the Advisory Committee to make contributions towards the implementation of this resolution. In it, the Council affirmed that people had the right to a democratic and equitable international order, which also required the right of every human person and all peoples to development, as a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human rights. Another paragraph of the resolution also referred to international solidarity, as a right of peoples and individuals.
Ms. Mathews noted that the Office had focused on some of these individual components of the right to a democratic and equitable international order in its activities. The High Commissioner had accorded key emphasis on the mandate of the right to development in the work of the Office. Since 2004, the right to development mandate had moved in an increasingly constructive direction, with a shift in focus from conceptual debates to practical operationalization. The Working Group on the right to development had adopted criteria for the periodic evaluation of global partnerships for development, in the context of Millennium Development Goal number eight. The Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights had also been engaged with the issue of the right to development and had been requested by the Commission to prepare a concept document, establishing options for the implementation of this right.
The Office was also supporting the work of the Independent Expert on human rights and international solidarity, Ms. Mathews said. His recent reports had focused on international cooperation and international solidarity. Assistance was also provided to the Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related obligations of States to the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights. She noted that the previous Independent Expert, Bernards Mudho, was now a member of the Advisory Committee.
EMMANUEL DECAUX, Advisory Committee Expert, referred to the Vienna World Conference in 1993 as a turning point where strong links between human rights and development were established. There was a large international consensus taking the rule of law as a basis for human rights at the regional level. Different bodies, including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, had underscored the strong links between the rule of law, democracy and human rights. It was a democratic imperative to enshrine the rule of law, democracy and human rights at the regional level. Mr. Decaux said that strengthening the role of the International Court of Justice was a way of promoting an equitable international order.
WOLFGANG STEFAN HEINZ, Advisory Committee Expert, said that he had studied the resolution and had been impressed by the vastness of it. There were many more issues addressed therein than just the right to development. What was the major message of the Council to the Committee? Should the Advisory Committee develop a project on this subject? On which areas should they focus on? The resolution was too large and the Advisory Committee could not tackle all of the issues contained therein. Or should they just implement the resolution by taking these aspects into consideration in their work? The text only said that they had to “pay due attention” to this issue.
LAZARO PARY, of Indian Movement "Tupaj Amaru", said that there was always a dominant class and no real democracy. International democracy was a very vague concept. The situation in Palestine, Darfur and Serbia showed that the International Criminal Court had been imposed to judge other heads of States. The Court was condemning a sitting Sudanese President, but there was an uprising in favour of the President.
CHEN SHIQIU, Advisory Committee Expert, said that he basically agreed with the statements made by his colleagues. Concerning the resolution, in his view, it asked them to do two things. The Advisory Committee had to attach great importance to the resolution itself. Second they had to think about how to reach this goal.
His understanding was that the first operative paragraph of this resolution was the most important one. On the issue of the right to development, this had been discussed many times in the past. In political science, international relations science and international law, there had been a lot of serious interpretation on this matter and there was a lot of controversy. The Advisory Committee should not repeat these discussions.
He believed that the Advisory Committee should put emphasis on whether one should recognize the right to development as a human right or not. The Vienna Conference had recognised the right to development as an inalienable human right. But there were still different views on this topic, and this right was still not recognised as a human right by many. The Advisory Committee should give further consideration to this issue.
The second issue was how they could achieve this right? He believed that there were three basic principles. The first one was to achieve and set up an equitable human rights system which should be first recognised at the country level. Whether they were rich, poor or small, no matter where they were located and regardless of their beliefs and ideological differences, countries should not discriminate against each other. Second came the equitability between people; the equity between men and women and between the intelligence of people, in the political beliefs of people and in education and access to labour.
There should be trust and respect of the political systems of every country; there should be no hatred between States. In the international field there was a lot of distrust between people and countries. This resulted in wars. In this kind of atmosphere how could one achieve a democratic and equitable international order? One should also respect international treaties, principles and laws. The basic principles of the United Nations Charter should be followed by the international community. There should be no bias, selectivity and double standards.
The Vienna Conference had recognised the universality of human rights. If one could not accept these kinds of principles, how could they then criticise other countries for their human rights record? One should also respect the uniqueness of the human rights of every country. Each country had a special situation and each had different ideas and approaches to human rights and how to realize them. These differences should be respected and not criticized. No country could say that it had the best approaches to human rights. In his belief, the criticism of other countries would not contribute to the promotion of human rights. One could not export revolutions or human rights. No country should believe that its human rights situation was the best.
Further, one should reject the politicisation of human rights. Every country should be responsible for the promotion of human rights and the Governments should be chiefly responsible for this. No country should use the pretext of collaboration to intervene in the human rights of other countries.
The Human Rights Council had asked the Advisory Committee to promote an equitable and democratic international order and human rights. Thus the Advisory Committee should consider setting up a team to study this issue.
VLADIMIR KARTASHKIN, Advisory Committee Expert, said in the Soviet Union people used to say that democracy could be possible in a one party system. Today, democracy only seemed to be possible in a multi party system. The opinions seemed to change on the subject. This was also true on the subject of interference in internal affairs. Now, it seemed that all countries that wanted to be considered as democratic had to have a multi party system. What needed to be done by the Committee was to identify some of the issues of the resolution and give a definition which would be acceptable to all States.
HALIMA WARZAZI, Advisory Committee Expert, said that when looking at the resolution, it seemed to her that they had to focus specifically on the title and zero in on the word “equitable”. This resolution was helping to set up a future order that did not exist yet. For a very long time, some countries had labelled themselves as champions of human rights. Yet current events showed that there were double-standards. Some had to pay for their war crimes, others were untouchable. One had to look at why there was no balance. This was a very thorny exercise; the Advisory Committee was required to show objectivity. She also wondered if they would be able to respond to all the provisions of the resolution. The Committee should avoid repeating what had been already done and said. They were asked by the Council to draw conclusions as Experts and she did not share the ideas of her colleagues that they should do the easiest work possible. Everything that was easy to do on this matter had already been done by others.
CHUNG CHINSUNG, Advisory Committee Expert, said that the focus was on international solidarity. It was the crucial strength of the Advisory Committee to collaborate.
JOAN ERNESTO CHRISTOFOLO (Brazil) said that the strengthening of multilateralism was important to Brazil. There was a need to strengthen the United Nations as it had a main role to play in multilateralism. Brazil wanted to draw the attention of the Experts to the need to strengthen the role played by the General Assembly. Concerning the right to development, the role played by the Economic and Social Council also had to be taken into account, in particular on the right to peace. Further, the Security Council had to be reformed. The under representation of certain regions in the Security Council should be part of this reform.
MONA ZULFICAR, Advisory Committee Expert, said that it was clear that the world could not have justice at the national level without having it at the international level. The Committee had a duty not only to pay attention to the issue but also to make contributions to it. It would be wise to have some reference on the work that had already been done by the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. She agreed that the Committee should have a brave voice that could be helpful in terms of implementation. She proposed that an Expert or a working group be chosen that would look through the work that had already been done and would make recommendations.
Discussion on Requests to the Advisory Committee from the Human Rights Council Concerning Missing Persons
JAMES HEENAN, of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said States held the primary responsibility for missing persons and families had the right to know the fate of their relatives. States had to undertake measures in a timely manner to establish the fate of missing persons. Data collection and traditional as well as newly developed forensic methods were especially important in addressing the phenomenon of missing persons. OHCHR’s work was focused on the preparation of reports to the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council.
OHCHR would organize a panel discussion at the September session of the Council on the subject of missing persons. It would involve experts of the International Committee of the Red Cross, delegates of Governments and non-governmental organizations as well as national human rights institutions and international organizations.
WOLFGANG STEFAN HEINZ, Advisory Committee Expert, asked whether the Office was aware of any work done by the Red Cross on best practices on this subject. The Advisory Committee should pay attention not to duplicate work that had already been done. They also had to look into the relationship between humanitarian law and human rights with regard to this topic.
ANSAR AHMED BURNEY, Advisory Committee Expert, said that awareness of the work of the Working Group on missing persons had to be raised. More must be done to encourage countries to work with this Working Group, so that more victims could be helped.
LATIF HUSEYNOV, Advisory Committee Expert, said that according to the resolution from the Human Rights Council, the Advisory Committee had to prepare a study on best practices. He wondered if they could ask the Human Rights Council to enlarge the mandate so that they could also analyse the current situation throughout the world. It could be important to implement an action oriented recommendation asking to make use of existing international monitoring mechanisms to carry out inspection visits to secret detention places where missing persons could be held. They should not restrict the mandate to armed conflicts and should go beyond that. Internal disturbances were not recognised as armed conflicts by international law, but it could also be interesting to cover this field as such situations could also end up with missing persons. Addressing the rights of families of disappeared persons was also important, especially their right to know what happened to their relatives.
PURIFICACION QUISUMBING, Advisory Committee Expert, said that the definition of missing persons was different from enforced disappearances. Was the Committee not including victims of enforced disappearances in its consideration of the issue? If yes, why was that so? Missing persons were in some countries victims of civil strife and were not covered by international humanitarian law.
VLADIMIR KARTASHKIN, Advisory Committee Expert, said that before going any further on this issue, he wanted to know for what reason the Human Rights Council had limited the resolution to only forced disappearances in armed conflicts.
JAMES HEENAN, of the Office of the High commissioner for Human Rights, said that it was difficult for him to answer this question and for him to talk about the motivations of the Council. But paragraph 11 did not impose any limitations to armed conflicts.
VLADIMIR KARTASHKIN, Advisory Committee Expert, said that when looking at the resolution he had been surprised by this distinction as people were disappearing both during peace and in times of war. He asked why the Council made a difference between people who disappeared in peace or in armed conflict. The first thing to do was to ask the Council whether it wanted the Committee to cover the two aspects or only one of them. The limitation of the study had to be decided. Many studies had been done already by the Sub-Commission, it would not be difficult to do a new study for the Committee, but the framework had to be clear.
HALIMA WARZAZI, Advisory Committee Expert, said that she wondered why the Committee was discussing this subject now. She wondered why the Council had submitted this item to the Advisory Committee now, when there would be a panel discussion in September, and the resolution said that the Advisory Committee had to discuss this matter “subsequently” to this panel. Did this not mean that they should start talking about this subject after the panel had taken place?
ALEXEY GOLTYAEV (Russian Federation) drew attention to the fact that the legal status of missing persons was regulated by different norms in international law. There were distinct definitions in international law. Concerning the interpretation of the resolution, the delegation interpreted the resolution as the coverage of all persons that had become missing persons in armed conflict. Since it was a sensitive and delicate issue, international humanitarian law had to be taken into account and the norms had to be followed strictly. Also, it was necessary to take into account the existing international instruments in working on the subject.
OSITADINMA ANAEDU (Nigeria) said that, in Nigeria’s view, the Advisory Committee was not limited by either what would come out of the panel work nor restricted to work only on the subject of missing persons from armed conflicts. The Advisory Committee had to tell the Council, after their analysis, about the existing situation, what had not been done rightly by States and what should be done better. The Advisory Committee should analyse what existed and bring back their conclusions to the Council.
ELIA DEL CARMEN SOSA NISHIZKI (Mexico) said that Mexico had the same understanding as the Russian Federation. There were common factors in disappearances and in missing persons, such as the right of the families to know the fate of their family members. Mexico referred to a study carried out concerning the right to property. In no way did the Delegation object to a study by the Committee regarding forced disappearances. Since the Council was discussing the subject in September, the meeting of the Advisory Committee in January would be a good opportunity to get back to this issue.
DANIEL VOSGIEN (France) said that they were in line with the statements by Russia and Mexico regarding the scope of the resolution. Enforced disappearances in case of armed conflicts and those happening in times of peace depended upon different conventions. It was the role of the panel and of the High Commissioner to set a framework and the Advisory Committee had to wait for the panel’s conclusion.
LATIF HUSEYNOV, Advisory Committee Expert, emphasized that the issue of forced disappearances was a different issue, governed by a different protection system. Enforced disappearances had to be treated in a criminal law context, missing persons in the context of humanitarian law. The two issues had to be separated. At this stage it would be particularly useful to make preparatory work.
HALIMA WARZAZI, Advisory Committee Expert, said that she was not able to share the view of her colleagues. In her view they should not tackle this issue now, and could not set up a Working Group now. They should wait for the High Commissioner to set up the discussion panel. The only thing they could do was to ask the High Commissioner if a member of the Bureau could have an Expert attend the panel discussion as an observer.
VLADIMIR KARTASHKIN, Advisory Committee Expert, said that the Committee had to prepare a study on missing persons in national conflicts. From his perspective, Mr. Huseynov’s and Ms. Warzazi’s proposals could be merged. It would suffice to have one or two Experts on the issue. The Committee could ask them to submit a report to it, then examine the suggestions and decide what to do.
EMMANUEL DECAUX, Advisory Committee Expert, said that in his opinion, it had been useful to have this discussion, because it was on their agenda. It had also permitted them to clarify what the Council wanted from the Advisory Committee. The idea of having someone attending the panel group was also an interesting idea. Further they should not dilute what they were doing but just get ideas on what others were doing. Interpol had already carried out a lot of work with regard to best practices with regard to this issue.
PURIFICACION QUISUMBING, Advisory Committee Expert, that in this particular case it was especially important to pay attention to international humanitarian law. Missing persons in armed conflict was an issue that was well covered by international humanitarian law. The issue had to be considered from a human rights perspective as well. She supported the idea to point out related topics to missing persons, such as victims of trafficking. Having heard different positions on this, maybe the Committee could ask the Chair to draft a recommendation to the Council.
HALIMA WARZAZI, Advisory Committee Expert, said that they were not empowered to take a decision until they received in September information from the High Commissioner about the panel. They had to get the results of the panel discussion first; this was clearly written in the resolution. It said that the High Commissioner would prepare a summary of the panel and would send it to the Advisory Committee which should work on the subject subsequently. They could thus not do anything else than saying that they were interested in the panel and that they wished to have an observer there.
MIGUEL ALFONSO MARTINEZ, Advisory Committee President, referred to his experience in working on the issue of missing persons. He underscored that the Council had sent a forewarning, the Committee had to be prepared to deal with the subject. How the Committee would prepare itself was left up to the Committee.
RONALD BARNES, of the Indian Council of South America, said that the right of peoples and nations had to be taken into account. The world should also look at a way to bring countries which contradicted themselves between their words and actions to account. A method should be created to hold them accountable for their actions. Further, when considering the indivisibility and interrelatedness of all rights, one had to recognize the importance of the right to food. Several studies on the right of self determination had also been conducted and the Advisory Committee was invited to continue this work.
JOSHUA COOPER, of World Association for Schools as an Instrument for Peace, referred to the right of people to a healthy environment. They hoped that the Committee took this right into account, especially with regards to indigenous peoples.
SUSAN MATHEWS, of the Research and Right to Development Division of the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, said that on the issue of the right to peace, there was a resolution by the Human Rights Council which looked at people’s right to peace. Consultations had taken place and a workshop would be held next year on this issue.
For use of the information media; not an official record
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