The Sub-Commission continued to meet and discuss item 2 of the agenda today, and the working group on the administration of justice was meeting in the afternoon. Beginning tomorrow, Thursday, the working group on transnational corporations will meet both Thursday and Friday afternoons. Today the new High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, also spoke with NGOs in a question and answer session during the lunch period. The picture to the right was taken during that program.
Under item 2, we continued to receive complements on yesterday's Minnesota Advocates' speech. We also received many requests for additional copies of the statement. More experts than last year participated in the item 2 debate, and others are scheduled to speak tomorrow. Several experts have indicated they support the idea of a joint working paper to consider ways to improve the effectiveness of the item 2 debate, but several also seem to believe that the best way to improve the agenda item is to get away from the country-specific focus, and move toward more thematic topics such as preventive mechanisms, early response warnings, and so forth.
Several expert members also referred to the crisis ongoing in Darfur, Sudan, but there is a difference of views as to whether the Sub-Commission can really discuss this topic at all, since it is also being discussed at the Commission on Human Rights, the Security Council and other mechanisms. The Sub-Commission has been given a stern warning from the expanded bureau of the Commission that they should not be engaging in duplicative work that is already being handled by other UN bodies. But there is a clear exception in the prior resolutions of the Commission for cases which are "urgent". Where a case is "urgent" the Sub-Commission is permitted to take up the matter. This problem of "should we talk about it or not" is clearly leaving the Sub-Commission somewhat paralyzed in deciding what they can do. This debate will probably continue through most of the session in the back halls and corridors, as the Sub-Commission members try to decide what if any draft resolutions they will adopt on this topic by the end of the session.
In the meantime the Minnesota Advocates has organized a general NGO meeting tomorrow, Thursday, to discuss amongst the NGOs how we might collectively advocate a better approach for item 2. This is a new experiment for Minnesota Advocates. We'll be chairing and facilitating this meeting, and preparing a report afterwards on what happened. Hopefully it will prove to be a good exercise.
The item 2 debate today also erupted into a minor controversy when the new expert from the U.S., David Rivkin, was speaking about human rights violations and began to talk about U.S. policy, including a defense of some of the U.S. military intervention decisions made in the last couple of years. The expert from Brazil, Paulo Pinheiro, called for a point of order and referred to the rules of procedure for the Sub-Commission which recommend that an expert not defend his or her own country in remarks before the Sub-Commission, in order to preserve the independence and impartiality of the Sub-Commission's deliberations. The Chairman of the Sub-Commission, Mr. Sorabjee from India, then ruled that Mr. Rivkin's remarks were general enough that they were not out of order, and permitted Mr. Rivkin to continue.
The new High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, assumed her post at the beginning of July. She made a brief statement to the NGOs, explaining her background, including key decisions she authored or was a part of on the Canadian Supreme Court, and her experience as prosecutor for the Ad Hoc Criminal Tribunals on Rwanda and Former Yugoslavia.
The question and answer session with NGOs covered topics such as women's issues, indigenous peoples programs, the need to improve the present official website of her office, religious persecution issues, better support for NGOs by her office in the regions, human rights education materials that could be translated into Russian and other local languages where NGOs need good human rights awareness information, and the Sub-Commission's item 2 problems. Her responses were generally supportive but non-specific, acknowledging in many of these cases that she was so new on the job that she was still becoming familiar with the dealings of the office.
She promised to continue this dialogue with NGOs, through quarterly meetings.
Mrs. Arbour replaces the late Sergio Veiria de Mello who was killed in the bombing of the UN office in Baghdad last August. A tribute to Mr. Viera de Mello is planned on the anniversary of his death, later in August. A book has also been published this week commemorating his life and work. The Acting High Commissioner who took over when Mr. Viera de Mello died, Bertrand Ramcharan, is leaving the UN this month, to take up private teaching opportunities. Very little is being mentioned officially about Mr. Ramcharan, who most NGOs believe did a very good job during the last year and who will be missed once he leaves the UN.
The working group on administration of justice met for its final time this year during the afternoon. Very few papers or topics were discussed and they ended early. It seems the working group is trying to find a new approach to their deliberations, in order to make sure in the future that a more substantive discussion is possible. When suggestions for topics and working papers were requested, Minnesota Advocates requested that the item of "transitional justice" be placed back on the agenda next year, and if possible, the Minnesota Advocates might be willing to submit a working paper on the Truth & Reconciliation Commissions in Peru and Sierra Leone as part of such an agenda item. The suggestion was received warmly and the subject of transitional justice was placed on the next year's agenda of the working group. Other items added to the agenda for next year are
During the Working Group on Administration of Justice, a general discussion ensued about the availability and effectiveness of domestic remedies when human rights violations are committed. Mr. Soli Sorabjee, expert from India, raised the problem of the Gujarat trials as an example. The first trials all resulted in acquittal, due to lack of evidence. Several of the key witnesses recanted their statements out of fear of reprisals. The prosecuting attorneys did not try to cross examine or present the context in such a way to salvage the original statements. Mr. Sorabjee felt that the transfer and retrial of the cases in another jurisdiction effectively solved the problem.
Since the Gujarat case is one that several at Minnesota Advocates have been following, we thought the comment was worth mentioning.
The schedule of the Sub-Commission has now been finalized, and it has created some difficulties for persons who were planning to come later for certain agenda items. These agenda items have now been reorganized as follows:
This year Swiss Federation day falls on the weekend, so it will not shorten the working days of the session like it did last year. Large fireworks displays are scheduled beginning Friday evening over the lake, in celebration of the annual Fete d'Geneve which begins on Saturday and runs for 10 days.