After waiting for several days thinking we would get a chance to present our oral statement under item 6, today we were called on at the beginning of the meeting. Then our turn to speak under item 3 also came up. So today we delivered two speeches, one supporting Barbara Frey’s study on small arms (item 6) and one explaining Minnesota Advocates interest in the Truth & Reconciliation Commission processes ongoing in Peru and Sierra Leone (Item 3). Nich Garwick made both presentations on behalf of Minnesota Advocates. Tha’s him in the photo to the right. Copies of the statements he presented are included on the speeches page of this website.
There was also an interesting debate on the universal implementation of treaties, where the issue of sovereignty again arose. Two papers were presented under item 3 (administration of justice). A brief presentation by the UN Geneva Office Chief Librarian explained access and resources to the extensive library on site. And the Sub-Commission’s Bureau again held a question and answer session with NGOs in the afternoon.
Minnesota Advocates and Geneva for Human Rights also released their report today on the NGO Forum meeting held during the first week of the session, regarding the improvement of the deliberations under item. 2. A copy of the report is now posted at the NGO Forum page of this website.
Mr. Decaux presented the preliminary report of his three-year study on universal implementation of international human rights standards. The 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights and the 2000 Millennium Declaration both called for all States to ratify and implement all human rights treaties. The sad problem is that this goal is far from being accomplished. The United States for example has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the Convention against Torture, but not the other four core human rights treaties, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Covenant on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights, the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on Migrant Workers and their Families.
Mr. Decaux, building on his working paper from last year, has proposed different ways of measuring and tracking how well States are doing toward this goal of ratifying all human rights treaties.
Mr. Decaux has argued in his study that in some cases States should be expected to implement standards even where they have not ratified the applicable treaty, for example where the standard in question is widely accepted by other countries. Several experts agreed in part with his remarks, including Mrs. Hampson (expert from the United Kingdom) and Mr. Kartashkin (expert from the Russian Federation). However Mr. Kartashkin also expressed concern about some aspects of Mr. Decaux’s paper and urged caution on this very complex subject.
Coming in more strongly in opposition to Mr. Decaux’s approach were Mr. Casey (alternate expert from the U.S.), Mr. Alfonso Martinez (expert from Cuba), and Mr. Salama (expert from Egypt), primarily on grounds of the sovereignty of states.
Mr. Decaux will continue this study for two more years and has promised to take into account the comments made this session in his next report.
Ms. Rakotoarisoa (expert from Madagascar) presented a second working paper this year on the difficulties of establishing guilt and/or responsibilities with regard to crimes of sexual violence. In her paper she focuses on the gathering of evidence, including forensic evidence, rules of evidence, the attitude of the investigating authorities, the creation of a genetic database of sex offenders, and rules of criminal and civil procedure, including the extraterritoriality of judicial competence regarding sex tourism. Sexual abuse of persons in detention, including sexual exploitation and the spreading of AIDS, paedophilia and cyber criminality are also examined.
The paper seems very comprehensive, received several complements from colleagues, and will probably lead to a multi-year study on the topic in this year’s voting.
Ms. O’Connor (expert from Jamaica) also presented her first working paper on the subject of women in prison. Ms. O’Connor finds that little consideration has been given to the different needs and problems of imprisoned women relative to those of men. She recommends that non-custodial options for women be more extensively considered and that training - -both in terms of professional skills as well as childcare skills—be incorporated in programmes for women in prison.
The paper is a good start on this topic, which has been under examined in the past. The Quakers Office is also following this topic closely and has submitted some useful information. Ms. O’Connor will probably be asked to continue her work on this topic next year, by preparing an expanded working paper.
The Chief Librarian of the UN Library in Geneva, Ms. Ruth Hahn-Weinart, gave a brief, crisp presentation to the Sub-Commission this afternoon (very librarian-like!), with good tips on access and research into the library’s collections. The entire card catalog is now electronic, available in the UN premises but not outside the UN.
The library collection has over 1 million books, 500,000 government publications and 4 million UN documents. It is the only location outside of New York with a complete set of all UN documents in all official languages. There are also many computer workstations with access to internal and at least 10 major external databases, including the Lexis-Nexis legal database.
Opening hours are normally from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday to Friday, but Ms.Hahn-Weinart indicated that the library may consider extending these hours next year to better accommodate the working hours of the Sub-Commission members, in particular so that research could be done before and after the Sub-Commission’s daily sessions.
The Bureau of the Sub-Commission again met with NGOs over the lunch period to field questions and provide a status report on various open matters.
Among matters disclosed were some of the compromises in process between conflicting draft resolutions that have been tabled for voting. In particular it would appear that here is a fragile compromise emerging which would preserve the TNC working group next year and add the counter-terrorism working group under item 6. This would mean three sessional working groups (the third being the working group on administration of justice). Instead of each working group meeting for 2 meetings of 3 hours each, the proposal is that each would meet for 2 meetings of 2 hours each, thereby fitting the same number of hours into schedule. We’ll have to wait to see how this works out in the voting tomorrow and Thursday.
Tomorrow the Sub-Commission continues its debate under item 3 (administration of justice) and will begin voting once that item is finished.