Geneva Updates
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Human Rights Committee set to scrutinize the United States regarding extra-territorial human rights obligations
The Human Rights Committee, which monitors compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), is set to scrutinize the United States regarding its extra-territorial human rights obligations under the Covenant. The U.S. will appear before the Committee in March 2014 for its periodic review. The Committee has made clear that the ICCPR includes extra-territorial obligations to respect and to ensure human rights, including by regulating and otherwise holding corporations accountable to those obligations for their activities abroad.
The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) successfully intervened with a Parallel Report laying out the extra-territorial obligations under the ICCPR and requesting that the Committee include scrutiny on those obligations within the periodic review of the U.S.
The List of Issues recently adopted by the Committee, which defines the scope of review, requires the U.S. to discuss its understanding of the "the scope of applicability of the Covenant with respect to individuals under its jurisdiction but outside its territory; in times of peace, as well as in times of armed conflict". As the Parallel Report makes clear, the jurisprudence of the Committee provides a clear articulation of the extra-territorial application of ICCPR obligations. Notwithstanding, the U.S. continues to states that the ICCPR only applies within U.S. territory.
The Global Initiative's Parallel Report for the periodic review also calls on the Committee to hold the U.S. accountable for extra-territorial obligations in the context of decisions made within international financial institutions such as the World Bank.
This examination of the U.S. provides advocates the opportunity to address the issue of extra-territorial obligations and provides the Committee the opportunity to finally settle this misinterpretation by the U.S. of its treaty obligations.
The GI-ESCR's Parallel Report regarding the List of Issues can be found HERE.
The List of Issues can be found HERE.
The GI-ESCR's Parallel Report on the legal analysis for the periodic review can be found HERE.
The Joint GI-ESCR/International Human Rights Clinic at Western New England University School of Law factual Parallel Reports can be found HERE and HERE.
NEWS: Extra-Territorial Obligation to Protect Human Rights
Media attention in Canada related to the Individual Complaint filed before the Human Rights Committee against Canada for violating extra-territorial obligations related to construction of settlements in Palestine by Canadian corporations:
Palestinians to UN: Canadian Businesses Profit in Settlements
BIL’IN, West Bank — In a move that could greatly impact the actions of third-party states and companies currently profiting from Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise in the West Bank, the Palestinian village of Bil’in recently filed a complaint against Canada with the United Nations.
Residents allege that Canada failed to prevent two Canadian companies — Greenpark International and Greenmount International — from constructing and profiting from settler houses built on their land in the Israeli settlement of Modi’in Illit.
“They don’t respect the international law when they [are] coming and building settlements with illegal methods in our lands,” explained Abdallah Abu Rahmah, an activist and member of the Bil’in Popular Committee.
Bil’in presented its case on March 18 to the UN Human Rights Committee, a body of judicial experts that monitors states’ implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The petition argues that Canada “violated its extra-territorial obligation to ensure respect” for five separate articles of the ICCPR.
This isn’t the first time that Bil’in residents sued the two Canadian-registered corporations. Residents took their case to the Quebec Superior Court in Montreal in 2008, accusing the companies of “aiding and abetting the commission of a war crime.”
The Quebec court ruled against the villagers’ petition, however, deciding that Canada didn’t have jurisdiction over the matter, and that the complaint should be heard in Israel instead.
“But we know about the situation in Israel. The courts and the system support building settlements,” Abu Rahmah told Al-Monitor. He said that the lack of justice in Israeli and Canadian courts pushed Bil’in to seek accountability at the UN.
Ending impunity
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power may not transfer its civilian population to the territory it occupies, and that doing so constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy also stipulates that companies — and the countries where these companies are registered — should ensure they respect international law standards in their work, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international conventions.
“This is a new approach to human rights enforcement in international law,” explained Israeli attorney Michael Sfard, who is representing the villagers of Bil’in in their complaint. “The idea is that the states’ obligations do not end in avoiding directly violating human rights, but also that they have to regulate the activity of nationals and corporations when those are acting abroad.”
Sfard told Al-Monitor that Canada has six months from the date the complaint was submitted (March 18) to respond. The UN Committee is then expected to make a decision.
“If [the committee decides] that Canada was wrong, then I hope that they will also indicate what are the remedies that Canada has to secure,” he added.
“Canada has post-facto not provided remedy for the victims of these abuses. After our long attempt to get remedy in Canadian courts, which was denied … the Canadian courts have sent us [back] to Israeli courts. Israeli courts are fundamentally not appropriate because in Israel, Israeli courts have concluded that the issue of settlements is not a matter for the courts to [decide].”
Decades of Israeli land confiscation
The Palestinian village of Bil’in — located only 12 kilometers from Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank — counts approximately 1,800 residents. Since 2005, villagers have held weekly demonstrations every Friday to denounce the Israeli separation wall that cuts through their land, and Israel’s continued settlement expansion and occupation.
The Jewish-only settlement of Modi’in Illit, which now holds more than 46,000 residents, was built on land that Israel confiscated from the village, while construction of Israel’s separation wall cut Bil’in off from over half of its land.
In 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the state to dismantle and rebuild a section of the wall that runs through Bil’in. The ruling was finally implemented in 2011, when 25% of the land was returned to local residents.
There are currently 520,000 Jewish-Israeli settlers living in the occupied West Bank, including 200,000 in east Jerusalem. Over the past decade, the Israeli settler population has grown at a rate of 5.3% annually, compared to only 1.8% growth inside Israel proper.
“They are making our life very difficult. They confiscated our land. They don’t allow us to work on it,” said Abdallah Abu Rahmah, explaining that the Israeli authorities grant residents access to large areas of their agricultural land only once a year.
“Our protest is to remove the settlements on our land, and destroy the wall on our land. Secondly, Bil’in was a model in all of the world in using non-violent resistance and for this, we will continue our struggle until we remove the occupation from our land.”
Setting a precedent
A recent UN-appointed fact-finding mission to assess the impact of Israeli settlements on Palestinians stated that countries must ensure that businesses domiciled under their jurisdiction that work in or in relation to Israeli settlements respect basic Palestinian human rights.
“Private companies must assess the human rights impact of their activities and take all necessary steps — including by terminating their business interests in the settlements — to ensure they are not adversely impacting the human rights of the Palestinian People,” it found.
Since Palestine received upgraded, non-member observer standing at the UN last year, many local groups have urged the Palestinian Authority (PA) to hold Israel accountable at the ICC for alleged war crimes.
While the PA has publicly threatened to go to the ICC, it recently announced that it would suspend efforts to use UN mechanisms to give US-led peace talks a chance to get off the ground. American Secretary of State John Kerry met separately with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week.
According to attorney Michael Sfard, Bil’in’s complaint to the UN could not only set an important precedent for Palestinians, but change the conduct of all corporations doing business outside of their national borders.
“If we are successful in this complaint, that means that we will secure a very mighty tool,” Sfard said. “That means that states will have to … regulate companies’ conduct extraterritorially. That would be a huge, huge development in international human rights law.”
Jillian Kestler-D'Amours is a Canadian journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Jerusalem. She is a regular contributor to Inter Press Service news agency, Al Jazeera English and Free Speech Radio News. Follow her on Twitter: @jilldamours.
Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing releases report on security of tenure
The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Raquel Rolnik, presented her new thematic report to the UN Human Rights Council on 4 March 2012. The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) prepared a Research Paper on Security of Tenure: Legal and Judicial Aspects for the Special Rapporteur and participated in an Expert Group Meeting held in Geneva in October 2012. The Research Paper helped inform the Special Rapporteur's report.
In the report, the Special Rapporteur elaborates upon the concept of security of tenure as a component of the right to adequate housing. The backdrop is one of a global tenure insecurity crisis, manifesting itself in many forms and contexts — forced evictions, displacement resulting from development, natural disasters and conflicts and land grabbing — and evident in the millions of urban dwellers living under insecure tenure arrangements.
The Special Rapporteur discussed existing guidance under international human rights law and raised questions regarding the precise State obligations with respect to ensuring security of tenure. She examined the wide range of existing tenure arrangements, and the prevalent focus in policy and practice on one form of tenure: individual freehold. The Special Rapporteur also discussed selected operational and policy challenges pertaining to securing tenure. She concluded by underscoring the need for more specific and comprehensive human rights and operational guidance on security of tenure.
According the the GI-ESCR's Research Paper: "Differing forms of security of tenure across the continuum of tenure types provide varying degrees of security, with this variance often correlated to property or socio-economic status. Guidelines on security of tenure should address this issue of non-discrimination on account of property or other status. Specifically, how can States ensure that all members of society, regardless of property or socio-economic status, enjoy security of tenure on the basis of non-discrimination and equal protection of the law? The solution may require a paradigm shift from correlating security of tenure with a property rights regime to grounding security of tenure solidly in the human rights framework."
More information on the Special Rapporteur's Security of Tenure Project, as well as copies of her report, can be found HERE.
Complaint filed before Human Rights Committee condemning forced evictions in the Philippines
Press Release
Today the residents of Corazon de Jesus, a community in San Juan City, Metro Manila, filed an Individual Complaint before the Human Rights Committee. The Complaint seeks accountability and remedies from the government of the Philippines for the brutal forced eviction of the community that took place last year. The Complaint also seeks a permanent halt to any further evictions.
As a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Philippines is legally obligated to not violate the terms of this human rights treaty, which include a prohibition on forced evictions.
The residents are represented by Defend Job Philippines, a human rights organization based in the Philippines; the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR), an international human rights NGO; and the International Human Rights Clinic at the New England University School of Law in the U.S.
According to Melona Daclan of Defend Job Philippines, “The Corazon de Jesus community has resorted to international human rights law to seek accountability for these egregious human rights violations because the courts in the Philippines have refused to enforce the human rights laws that are to protect the citizens of the Philippines.”
Bret Thiele, Co-Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, added that “international scrutiny is necessary to bring to an end the impunity with which forced evictions are carried out in the Philippines.”
The Human Rights Committee is an impartial, independent human rights mechanism sitting in Geneva, Switzerland and is mandated with ensuring compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Philippines became a party to the Covenant in 1986 and three years later voluntarily accepted the Individual Complaint mechanism whereby victims of human rights violations can seek to hold States accountable to their human rights obligations and seek remedies when those obligations are violated.
Individual Complaint Mechanism for Violations of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to Come Into Force
The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) welcomes the tenth ratification of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. With this tenth ratification, the Optional Protocol will come into force on 5 May 2013. The ten States Parties to date are Argentina, Spain, Ecuador, Mongolia, Bolivia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Slovakia, El Salvador, Portugal and Uruguay. Finland is likely to soon follow. The Optional Protocol creates mechanisms for Individual Complaints as well as State to State complaints and inquiries initiated by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights regarding obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
With the Optional Protocol, the international community comes much closer to treating "human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis" as required by the Vienna Declaration on Human Rights.
The Individual Complaint procedure provides an opportunity for everyone, including those living in poverty and other marginalized groups, to hold States accountable for respecting, protecting and fulfilling economic, social and cultural rights, including the human rights to adequate housing, food, water, sanitation, health care and education. This procedure will also provide further clarity on the content on human rights, resulting in greater guidance for governments that seek to implement the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in good faith.
The Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is a member of the ESCR-Net Working Group on Adjudication and its Strategic Litigation Initiative (SLI). The SLI will work with human rights advocates to build capacity to use these new human rights enforcement mechanisms to their fullest, including working to ensure that resulting jurisprudence is informed by the voices of marginalized individuals, groups and communities and reflects progressive human rights ideals.
For more information on the Optional Protocol, and how to get involved with further advocacy around the Optional Protocol, see HERE.
Human Rights Committee addresses violations of housing, water and sanitation rights under the ICCPR
Human Rights Committee addresses housing rights violations and denial of access to water and sanitation as violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Building upon work initiated by staff from the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) in 2010, the Human Rights Committee has adopted a List of Issues that will define the scope of the next periodic review of Israel. The forthcoming periodic review is an accountability mechanism that addresses compliance with human rights obligations under the ICCPR.
The GI-ESCR submitted a Parallel Report to the Human Rights Committee calling on the Committee to question Israel's compliance with the Concluding Observations issued by the Committee in 2010, with a particular focus on the violations of Palestinians rights to adequate housing as well as rights related to denial of access to water and sanitation. The Report covered both the occupied Palestinian territory as well as the Bedouin community in Israel.
The Report resulted in the Committee requiring Israel to expressly respond to several issues, including forced evictions and housing demolitions as collective punishment; lack of availability of housing construction permits for Palestinians; denial of equal access for Palestinians and Bedouins to adequate housing, agricultural land, water and sanitation; denial of Palestinians ability to construct wells; violations of Bedouin’s rights to ancestral land and access to water and sanitation; denial of access to sufficient and safe drinking water for residents of Gaza; and the detrimental effect of the blockade on Gaza on water, sanitation and livelihood.
Bret Thiele, Co-Executive Director of the GI-ESCR, said that "It is hoped that this List of Issues not only strengthens on-the-ground advocacy in the area Palestinian social rights and lays the foundation for further advocacy during the forthcoming periodic review of Israel, but that it also lays the foundation for social rights advocacy under the ICCPR more generally, including the Individual Complaint procedure."
The 2010 Parallel Report can be found HERE (drafted by GI-ESCR staff while previously at COHRE)
The 2010 Concluding Observations can be found HERE
The 2012 Parallel Report can be found HERE
The 2012 List of Issues can be found HERE (see in particular paragraphs 6, 9 and 13)
New Publication: Women and the Right to Adequate Housing
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released its publication entitled Women and the Right to Adequate Housing. This publication provides an overview of the meaning, intent and implications of the human right to adequate housing, and illustrates de jure and de facto obstacles to women worldwide enjoying this right effectively.
Mayra Gomez, Co-Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provided input into the publication, and hopes that it is used as a tool by women's rights advocates worldwide.
The publication is divided into four substantive sections. Following the introduction, chapter I describes the international legal and policy frameworks for the implementation of women’s right to adequate housing, including human rights treaties, the principles of non-discrimination and equality and the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights. Chapter II outlines the main underlying causes, ranging from discriminatory statutory laws to customary laws and practices and lack of access to legal and other remedies. Finally, chapter III elaborates on a number of selected issues such as forced evictions, degraded living conditions, and cultural and religious recognition of women’s rights, underlining regional similarities and differences.
There are examples of initiatives by women and women’s groups around the world to address the general and specific issues faced by women in their struggle for social rights, illustrating the strength and creativity of individual women and communities that have responded to violations of women’s rights to adequate housing, land and inheritance. There are also many examples of projects undertaken by communities, sometimes in conjunction with States, to positively address the needs and violations of women’s rights. Some are highlighted in this publication. Its aim is therefore twofold: to shed light on the main obstacles to women’s full enjoyment of the right to adequate housing; and offer guidance about measures to prevent and eradicate discrimination, including violence, against women in housing rights.
The full publication can be accessed HERE.
Human Rights Committee Prevents Forced Eviction of Roma Community in Bulgaria
In a landmark decision in the case of Liliana Naidenova et al. v. Bulgaria, the Human Rights Committee issued a permanent injunction preventing the forced eviction of the Dobri Jeliazkov community in Sofia, Bulgaria. This case involves a Roma community in Sofia that has existed for over seventy years and faced imminent forced eviction in July 2011 to make way for so-called development. The impoverished community was not consulted and was not provided alternative housing. The Committee ordered the authorities not to evict the community until they have agreed upon alternative housing. Working with its Bulgarian partner, Equal Opportunities Association Initiative, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) launched the case before the Human Rights Committee in 2011. This case was built on a foundation of jurisprudence created through strategic litigation over the previous six years, beginning with a Shadow Report on Kenya in 2005 that resulted for the first time in forced evictions being considered a violation of the ICCPR and a Shadow Report on Israel in 2010 that reaffirmed and strengthened those Concluding Observations as well as addressing denial of access to water.
In 2011, the Human Rights Committee issued its first ever temporary injunction, under its Interim Measures procedure, to prevent a forced eviction. In 2012, it also used the Interim Measures procedure to order the reconnection of water supply which had been disconnected in an attempt to force the community to leave their homes.
According to Bret Thiele, Co-Executive Director of the GI-ESCR, "The use of Interim Measures to not only prevent forced evictions, but also to order positive measures such as the reestablishment of water supply, is a very welcomed development under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."
In its final decision on the merits, the Committee also stated that this decision applied to similar situations, thereby providing broader systemic impact across Bulgaria.
Equal Opportunities Association Initiative said "We consider the decision as a great success and hope that it will prevent any further threats for eviction before securing of alternative housing for the community. "
Community members said they can now feel secure going into the winter that they will not be forcibly evicted.
For further information, including case documents and the Committee's decision, see HERE.
COMMENTS:
"I am a Roma from Bulgaria and a human rights master's student at the University of Essex, UK. I read the press-release on winning the case of 2011 Roma evictions in Sofia before the Human Rights Committee and decided immediately to send you a note. Congratulations to you and your team for wining the case! I hope you will continue working on Roma issues and cooperate with organizations working on Roma rights issues. Thank you for the great efforts and work!"
- Angel Ivanov, Human Rights Lawyer, Bulgaria
Human Rights Committee recognizes Extra-Territorial Obligations under the ICCPR
Human Rights Committee recognizes Extra-Territorial Obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
27 November 2012
The Human Rights Committee recently issued its Concluding Observations, or findings, related to the periodic report of Germany. Germany appeared before the Human Rights Committee recently to present its periodic report on implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In April 2012, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) intervened with a Parallel Report to the Human Rights Committee regarding violations of Germany’s extra-territorial obligation to protect human rights by not regulating or holding accountable a German corporation involved in forced evictions in Uganda.
The report covered the forced eviction of the villages of Kitemba, Luwunga, Kijunga and Kirymakole in the Mubende District of Uganda that were carried out in 2001 on behalf of the Neumann Kaffee Gruppe to make way for a coffee plantation. The GI-ESCR Report concluded that Germany violated its extra-territorial obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to protect human rights by failing to regulate Neumann Kaffee Gruppe and for failing adequately to investigate and appropriately sanction Neumann Kaffee Group for its complicity in the forced evictions. To date those evicted continue to live in extreme poverty due to their forced eviction and have been unable to realize their right to a remedy in either Uganda or Germany.
This initial report resulted in the issue of extra-territorial application of the Covenant included in the List of Issues which defined the scope of Germany's periodic review. That List of Issues stated:
"17. Please comment on allegations that families forcibly evicted at gunpoint in August 2001 from their homes and lands in Naluwondwa-Madudu, Mubedne District, Uganda to make way for a large coffee plantation owned by Kaweri Coffee Plantation Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Neumann Kaffee Gruppe Hamburg continue to live in extreme poverty and explain what the State party has done to investigate the role and responsibility of Neumann Kaffee Gruppe."
The Global Initiative followed up with another Parallel Report prepared for the October/November 2012 session of the Committee, which resulted in the recent Concluding Observation, which states:
"16. While welcoming measures taken by the State party to provide remedies against German companies acting abroad allegedly in contravention of relevant human rights standards, the Committee is concerned that such remedies may not be sufficient in all cases (art. 2, para. 2).
The State party is encouraged to set out clearly the expectation that all business enterprises domiciled in its territory and/or its jurisdiction respect human rights standards in accordance with the Covenant throughout their operations. It is also encouraged to take appropriate measures to strengthen the remedies provided to protect people who have been victims of activities of such business enterprises operating abroad."
According to Bret Thiele, Co-Executive Director of the GI-ESCR, "With these clear pronouncements, the Human Rights Committee made clear the extra-territorial scope of human rights obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which now lays the foundation for future advocacy before the Committee, including opening up avenues of accountability and remedies under the Individual Complaint procedure."
Read the Initial Parallel Report HERE.
Read the List of Issues HERE.
Read the Follow Up Parallel Report HERE.
The full Concluding Observations are HERE.
For more information on Extra-Territorial Obligations and human rights, see ETO Consortium
COMMENTS:
"I just received a forward from Jennie Green about the HRCommittee's extension of extraterritorial obligations to Germany. I just wanted to write to say good work and congratulations! The Human Rights Clinic has also been working to broach extraterritorial obligations with regards to arms, and your work has certainly paved the path for us to push those issues."
- Laura Matson, Human Rights Litigation and International Legal Advocacy Clinic, Student Director, University of Minnesota Law School
"Congratulations! This is great news for all of us. Already thinking about how to use it in Haiti….."
- Brian Concannon Jr., Esq., Director, Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti
"Great development on both extraterritoriality and business and human rights! Congratulations and thanks!"
- Jennifer M. Green
Associate Professor of Clinical Instruction
Director, Human Rights Litigation
International Advocacy Clinic
University of Minnesota Law School
