4 -5 March 2004
Gulf Times
By Bonnie James in Qatar
THE UN has been urged to do a drastic evaluation of the practice of holding regional workshops on the promotion and protection of human rights as the ‘process has become very old’.
“This meeting is a fossil from the 50s and 60s of the UN,” Ravi Nair executive director, South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC) told Gulf Times yesterday.
Nair was speaking on the sidelines of the 12th workshop on Regional Co-operation for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the Asian-Pacific Region being held here.
The noted human rights activist stated that the event lacked partnership with the civil society, a vital component to achieve the objectives.
“Governments in the region, with some honourable exceptions, have seen that these workshops have remained static without incremental progress,” stated Nair.
Nair was of the view that this was an attempt to negate the history of anti-colonial struggle in the region. “The stands of the governments at this meeting does not reflect the realities back home,” observed Nair.
In his opinion, many of the diplomats attending the workshop are ‘more regressive’ as they are not subject to parliamentary scrutiny back home.
“India, Pakistan and Australia have adopted extremely regressive positions,” he maintained while sharing his critical observations on the exercise.
Countries in the region have ratified only one (The Rights of the Child) of the six core UN conventions on human rights, Nair said referring to the slow progress on the front.
Kieren Fitzpatrick, director of the Asia Pacific Forum (APF) of National Human Rights Institutions, urged countries in the region that have not established National Human Rights Commissions to do the same and provide ideal working environments.
“These bodies should be independent of the state, civil society, parliament and judiciary and be allowed to function without political compromises,” he told Gulf Times.
Fitzpatrick was of the view that these national commissions have a big responsibility given the fact that the UN is ‘completely inaccessible to 99% of the global population’.
“Given the geographical limitations it is impossible for the people to approach the UN directly to complain about human rights violations,” he clarified.
All the UN treaties are also completely irrelevant for a majority of countries for the same reason. “So, it is the duty of the national commissions to turn rhetoric into reality,” he maintained.
The senior APF official also stressed on the possibility of ‘synthesising’ international human rights law with Islamic law for the effective protection of human rights in the countries concerned.
Ahmad Zia Langari, commissioner of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, said the forum was making satisfactory progress after being set up in June 2002.
“Though we cannot expect a revolution overnight after emerging from the shadows of 23 years of human rights violations, there is remarkable change,” Langari maintained.
The Commission has set up seven regional offices apart from the headquarters in Kabul. “We are having close ties with various departments and trying to include human rights education in the curricula,” the official added.
The workshop, which has brought together 40 countries from the region as well as non-governmental organisations, will conclude today.
The event has been organised by the Qatar government in association with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).