27 July 2005
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Sub-Commission on the Promotion and
Protection of Human Rights
Fifty seventh session
Item 2 of the provisional agenda
Statement of Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
In the interest of finding new and useful approaches to Item 2, the Minnesota Advocates has done some research in preparation for this years Sub Commission session, to assess the highest priority human rights problems which NGOs feel are unaddressed in the world today. We raise these country situations to the Sub-CommissionŐs attention and have some specific requests for possible actions at the end of this statement.
We have done this research in two ways -- first to review and compile human rights country cases that are listed on major NGO websites as of today; second, by evaluating the NGO interventions made at the Commission on Human Rights this year and identifying countries which were not addressed in any Commission resolutions.
First, the websites. We surveyed 13 major international and regional websites (the specific listing is included in the written version of this statement). This resulted in a list of 91 countries, spread throughout all the regions of the world which have human rights violations of concern to one or more of these NGOs. The details again are in our written statement. But we recognized that 91 is too large a number to deal with practically in a forum of this nature. So we applied a rule of thumb -- any country listed four or more times on these 13 websites. This resulted in a list of nine countries, spread throughout the regions (although it was sometimes difficult to determine which in region a country should be placed). Here are the 9 countries:
In Asia, 3 countries -- Indonesia, Iran and Myanmar
In the Western & Other Group, 2 countries -- Israel and the United States
In Latin America, 1 country -- Colombia
In Africa, 1 country -- Zimbabwe
In Eastern Europe, 2 countries -- the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan
Next, we looked at the NGO interventions before the Commission this year. There were 43 interventions, naming 31 countries -- again spread throughout the regions. The details are attached to our written statement. Here again we used the rule of thumb of four or more references, which resulted in a total of five countries. NONE of these countries were addressed in Commission resolutions under item 9 this year.
These five countries were as follows:
In Asia, 2 countries -- India and Nepal
In the Western Europe and Other Group, 1 country -- the United States
In Latin America -- no countries received 4 or more mentions
In Africa, 1 country -- Sudan (Darfur)
In Eastern Europe, 1 country -- the Russian Federation
There are of course always difficulties in assembling statistics like this, and we have used some arbitrary cutoffs which inevitably are subjective, but we have tried to apply a logic to this approach which hopefully provides some perspective on the country situations which NGOs feel are most important today. It is also difficult to present a detailed country analysis like this orally, so we have summarized the data in a fashion we thought would be easiest to present, but the details are available in the attachment to our written statement, and in the respective websites and NGO interventions which we have cited.
Now what should the Sub Commission do about this? We have a couple of suggestions.
First, to those authors of working papers and studies for the next year, the 58th session, please consider these particular country situations as well as others which pertain to your topic in the preparation of your report. We believe it is important, and fully consistent with the think tank function and the value of Item 2, in examining a particular thematic phenomenon to evaluate in that theme the countries where there are presently particular grave human rights problems on going.
Second, if the idea of a prioritization of country situations like we have done is considered useful, perhaps invite others to speak next year, in an expert panel format such as that now being used by the Social Forum, to give a view of grave country situations from the perspective of different fields of work. For example, perhaps someone from UNICEF, from UNHCR, and from the High Commissioners office could be asked to comment from their perspectives, on country situations where grave unmet human rights violations are present. There is of course an inevitable subjectivity which occurs in this type of work, but we would submit that the responsibility of a Sub Commission of experts like yourselves is to seek out good, credible, balanced ways of looking at the data from different perspectives, rather than to throw out the data as unmanageable.
Third, to the extent the Sub Commission is able to find a formula this year for compiling an effective summary of its Item 2 debate, we would request that summaries like this one be included or referenced in that report.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we offer this approach as one way to experiment and adapt to the new realities of the Sub-Commission Item 2 mandate. We are sure it is not the best way or the only way. There are no doubt many other useful approaches. We encourage feedback on our intervention today, and we encourage all persons interested in preserving and improving Item 2 to the Sub-Commission agenda to also consider presenting new, innovative, different approaches to their Item 2 work in this year and coming years sessions of the Sub Commission.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
[note: see also the summary of data attached to this statement (in Microsoft Word)]