JBI Human Rights

In Inaugural Jacob Blaustein Institute Human Rights Lecture, Prof. Moshe Halbertal Examines the Moral Obligation to Protect Civilians in Asymmetric War

JBI is pleased to announce the publication of the inaugural Jacob Blaustein Institute Human Rights Lecture, delivered by Professor Moshe Halbertal at a December 9, 2014 event in New York City attended by legal scholars, diplomats, human rights advocates, and friends of JBI.

Prof. Halbertal delivering the inaugural JBI Human Rights Lecture on Dec. 9, 2014

The lecture, which can be downloaded here, outlines a moral argument demonstrating why governments and societies must demand that their military forces adhere to the requirements of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, even when they find themselves battling non-state adversaries that gain tactical advantages when they deliberately violate the law by hiding among civilians and putting their lives at risk.  Halbertal defines this duty as one of “responsibility,” which requires soldiers to take steps to minimize the collateral harm they cause to civilians as much as possible, even when this means assuming risks to their own lives to protect civilians.  Halbertal emphasizes the need for militaries to train their soldiers so that they are prepared to do "what decency demands" even in asymmetric conflict.

The JBI Human Rights Lecture series was established by Robert S. Rifkind, a distinguished attorney and civic leader, who served as Chair of the Institute’s Administrative Council from 2000 to 2007. Other lectures in this series will examine key human rights issues from other perspectives, such as through the lens of human rights law and practice, as well as in a historical or policy context.

New JBI Publication: Manual on Human Rights and the Prevention of Genocide

At an event on genocide prevention at UN Headquarters yesterday, Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Genocide Prevention Adama Dieng, and Ambassador Eugene-Richard Gasana, Permanent Representative to the UN of Rwanda joined an audience of over 100 diplomats and human rights experts in welcoming a new publication by the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI). The archived webcast of the event is available here.

  The publication, a Manual on Human Rights and the Prevention of Genocide is available here.

Beijing+20: Looking again at violence against women

To mark the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Beijing World Conference on Women (Beijing plus 20) during the current session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women,  JBI’s director Felice Gaer writes when and why private violence against women has become an issue of concern to States parties to the Convention against Torture on the blog of the World Organization against Torture.   

The blog post is available here.

Country-Specific Scrutiny by the UN Human Rights Council: Changes Documented Since US Membership Began [2015 Update]

At the end of 2015, the United States will complete its second consecutive three-year term as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, the intergovernmental body created in 2006 to replace the Commission on Human Rights.  In an effort to review the effect of US membership on the Council’s performance, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights has periodically [1] [2] documented the number of country-specific resolutions adopted by the Council, the special sessions convened by the Council on human rights crises, and the number of special procedures created by the Council to investigate country-specific and thematic issues.  These are a number of areas to which the US has devoted substantial attention during its time on the Council.

While there remain many aspects of the Council’s performance that States should continue to work to improve, and while the Council still devotes a disproportionate degree of its country-specific action to Israel, JBI’s review finds that US engagement has had beneficial effects on the Council’s performance.  During the remainder of its second term, the United States should continue its efforts by pressing Council members to convene special sessions on emerging human rights crises whenever they occur and by proposing (and encouraging others to put forward) resolutions that identify by name those responsible for serious human rights violations worldwide.  It should also continue efforts to ensure the Council’s credibility and professionalism, including with respect to Israel.

JBI’s detailed documentation and analysis of trends over time, as well as background information, can be found in the full analysis below.

UN Security Council adds North Korea to agenda, holds first formal discussion of human rights violations

The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) welcomed the decision of the UN Security Council today to add the situation in North Korea to its agenda and to hold its first-ever formal discussion of the severe human rights violations perpetrated by the government.

The Security Council's action today demonstrated overwhelming acknowledgement by its members that the widespread, systematic human rights abuses perpetrated by the North Korean government for decades constitute a threat to international peace and security and are a legitimate concern of the Security Council. The Council's decision followed the adoption by other UN intergovernmental bodies of resolutions condemning the North Korean government's unparalleled brutality, as documented in the February 2014 report of the Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), an independent body created by the UN Human Rights Council. In resolutions adopted by large margins at the Human Rights Council in March and at the UN General Assembly on December 18, UN Member States endorsed the findings of the Commission of Inquiry and called on the UN Security Council to consider them as well.

The Security Council meeting today began with a procedural vote by the Council's 15 members on the question of whether to add the situation in North Korea to its agenda, without prejudice to the existing agenda item on North Korea in the context of non-proliferation. The decision was adopted with the support of eleven of the Council's fifteen members, and over the objections of China and Russia. It was not subject to a veto, as it concerned a procedural matter.

Following the vote, Council members were briefed on the situation in North Korea by representatives of the UN Department of Political Affairs and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. During the discussion that followed, several Permanent Representatives voiced their horror at the scale and severity of the abuses documented by the Commission of Inquiry, among them its finding that up to 120,000 North Korean citizens remain in incommunicado arbitrary detention in a political prison camp system in which gross human rights abuses are regularly committed.

In her remarks, US Ambassador Samantha Power raised the case of Kim Young-soon, a former detainee in one such political prison camp, who testified that she and other prisoners were deliberately subjected to near starvation by prison camp authorities. Reflecting on the gravity of these abuses, which the Commission of Inquiry found to amount to crimes against humanity, Ambassador Power and several other Security Members stressed the need for the Security Council to consider referring the situation in North Korea to the International Criminal Court. At the same time, Member States stressed the need for the Security Council to receive regular briefings on the human rights situation in the future, based on information gathered by the UN special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, Marzuki Darusman, and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which will open a field office in Seoul, South Korea in March 2015. Member States also called on the North Korean government to curb its abuses, beginning by closing its political prison camps, and to provide unfettered access to the country to human rights monitors and humanitarian groups.

JBI has long called on UN Member States and agencies to devote greater attention to North Korea’s appalling human rights record and to press the regime to curb its widespread violations (see past posts on these efforts here (UNSC discussion), here (UNGA resolution), here (Commission of Inquiry report), and here (conference calling for creation of Commission of Inquiry)). In recent weeks, JBI worked in close collaboration with other human rights groups, including the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), to advance the findings and recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry report at the UN General Assembly and Security Council. JBI and HRNK's joint activities included facilitating meetings in New York between diplomats and North Korean former political prisoners Mrs. Kim Young-soon and Mr. Jung Gwang-il, providing them with an opportunity to share their personal experiences and to stress to UN Member States the importance of promptly implementing the Commission of Inquiry's recommendations.

JBI Calls for UN Security Council to Consider the Situation of Human Rights in North Korea

JBI, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), and eight other leading human rights groups wrote today to members of the UN Security Council, urging them to formally discuss the human rights situation in North Korea in the Council without delay.  The full text of the letter appears below.

The letter expresses support for a December 5 request made by ten Security Council members for the situation in North Korea to be formally placed on the Security Council’s agenda and for the Security Council to be briefed on the situation in North Korea as early as possible in December. 

JBI Welcomes Release of Senate Study on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program and Calls for Further Reforms

The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) welcomes the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s publication today of the executive summary of a study of the detention and interrogation program carried out by the CIA from 2001- 2009. 

JBI has long called for the public release of the Committee’s study, in keeping with its commitment to ensuring that counterterrorism measures are effective and consistent with human rights and civil liberties.  In May 2013, for example, JBI called for the declassification and prompt release of the entire 6,700-page report. 

JBI deeply regrets the report’s findings.  In particular, the report finds that the CIA brutally interrogated and held detainees in extremely harsh conditions of confinement that were “far worse than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others.”  It finds inaccurate the CIA’s repeated claims that these brutal interrogation techniques were necessary to acquire “otherwise unavailable” actionable intelligence that “saved lives.”  

We welcome President Obama’s statement in response to the release of the report that the practices it documents “were not only inconsistent with our values as a nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests” and “did significant damage to America’s standing in the world.”  We welcome his pledge to “make sure we never resort to those methods again.” 

We also appreciate the personal conclusion reached by Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein in the foreword to the report released today, echoed on the Senate floor by Senator John McCain, that some of these brutal interrogation methods documented in the report amounted to torture.  JBI has repeatedly expressed unequivocal opposition to the use of torture by interrogators representing our nation.  We have also called on the United States to fully comply with its international human rights obligations under the UN Convention against Torture and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  In November and March 2014, respectively, the independent expert committees that oversee the implementation of these two treaties evaluated the record of the United States.  Both committees called for the publication of the Senate committee report and for the United States to ensure that abuses revealed in the reports are effectively investigated.   

JBI called on members of the Senate and the Executive Branch to take steps in response to these troubling findings in order to ensure that the United States never again violates its domestic and international obligations to prevent and prohibit torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.  

Said JBI Director Felice Gaer, “I commend the release of this report as well as the statements made today by Senators Feinstein and McCain affirming the need for steps to be taken to ensure that its appalling findings – that the US government failed to prevent the use of torture by those acting in its name, as well as to detect and eliminate it promptly – will spur meaningful reforms to ensure that such actions are never again taken.”

JBI Calls for Adoption of Landmark UN Resolution on Human Rights in North Korea

JBI, together with the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) and seven other leading human rights groups, has dispatched a letter (available here) to all Member States of the UN General Assembly calling for them to support a landmark resolution on human rights in North Korea. 

The General Assembly’s Third Committee (on human rights) is expected to vote on the resolution on Tuesday, November 18. 

The draft resolution under consideration is particularly significant because the General Assembly would endorse, for the first time, the landmark final report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which concluded its work earlier this year (DPRK COI).

The DPRK COI found that the gravity, scale and nature of the ongoing human rights violations in North Korea are “without parallel in the contemporary world.”  Among other recommendations, it called for UN Member States to refer the COI’s report to the UN Security Council and for the Council to consider referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to consider the COI’s conclusion that many crimes against humanity have been committed in North Korea, pursuant to policies set at the “the highest levels of the State.”  

Cuba recently proposed an amendement to the draft resolution that would eliminate the language calling for the DPRK COI report to be transmitted to the UN Security Council and for it to consider referring North Korea to the ICC, claiming that instead the UN should adopt a more “cooperative” approach to the country.   The EU and Japan, the principal drafters of the resolution, have opposed the amendment and encouraged Member States to vote against it.  If adopted by the Third Committee on Tuesday, the resolution will be taken up by the full General Assembly for consideration in December.

When the text of the draft resolution was first announced, JBI and HRNK encouraged Member States to support the text and to send the message that the international community is ready to take meaningful action in response to the DPRK COI report and its grave conclusions.  JBI, HRNK and other human rights groups, together with Australia, Botswana and Panama, also sponsored a UN side-event featuring remarks by the Chairperson of the DPRK COI, Justice Michael Kirby of Australia, and first-hand witnesses to the human rights abuses in North Korea [video available here].

At that event, Justice Kirby called on States to support the strong call for accountability in the draft resolution and to send the message: “We don’t back away.  We expect accountability for great crimes.”

Jacob Blaustein Institute welcomes new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Applauds pledge to support courageous human rights defenders, protect victims, and challenge abusers 

In his first public speech as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein outlined several important commitments, including: to place victims at the center of his work, to speak out when States fail to fulfill their human rights obligations, and to facilitate the courageous work of peaceful human rights defenders.

In doing so, the new High Commissioner has echoed several of the most important recommendations that the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) has directed to his predecessors during the 20 years that the post has existed.  These recommendations and others appear in its 2013 book, The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: Conscience for the World.  JBI congratulates the High Commissioner on outlining this positive agenda as he begins his tenure and wishes him success in his efforts to make the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights a reality for all.

In his remarks,  delivered at the opening of the 27^th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the new High Commissioner  cited lessons drawn from his personal experiences serving in the UN’s peacekeeping force in the Former Yugoslavia, and from his own studies of history and contemporary international life, including his service as Jordan’s Ambassador to the United Nations in New York and earlier, as Ambassador to the United States in Washington DC.

High Commissioner Zeid placed signal importance on the need to value courage, and to do more to protect human rights defenders.  He contrasted the courage of human rights defenders that fight injustice with nonviolent methods with the “narrow and unyielding” ideology of the “Takfiri” religious extremists that have attacked innocent people throughout the world, particularly in Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Kenya, Somalia, Mali, Libya, Syria and Iraq and on 9/11.

Zeid continued:  “…should this movement actually try to govern … It would be a harsh, mean-spirited, house of blood …  In the Takfiri world, unless your view is identical to theirs – and theirs is extremely narrow and unyielding - you forfeit your right to life.  … there is no love of neighbour -- only annihilation to those Muslims, Christians, Jews and others (altogether the rest of humanity) who believe differently to them.”

Zeid expressed his gratitude for the work of those who preceded him in the post of High Commissioner, particularly outgoing High Commissioner Navi Pillay.  High Commissioner Zeid also commended the Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s “Rights Up Front” initiative and offered his support to efforts to fully integrate human rights into the UN’s broader work globally. 

High Commissioner Zeid also provided a sweeping update on the conflicts and issues being addressed by his office. The public remarks were his first after being sworn in by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, on Thursday, September 4. Zeid’s term in office will continue through August 2018.

Country-Specific Scrutiny by the UN Human Rights Council: Changes Documented Since US Membership Began [Update]

The United States is now well into its second consecutive three-year term as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, the intergovernmental body created in 2006 to replace the Commission on Human Rights.  In an effort to review the effect of US membership on the Council’s performance to date, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights has periodically reviewed the number of country-specific resolutions adopted by the Council, the special sessions convened by the Council on human rights crises, and the number of special procedures created by the Council to investigate country-specific and thematic issues.  These are a number of areas to which the US has devoted substantial attention during its time on the Council.

To date, this review has continuously found that in the years that the US has served on the Council, the body’s criticism of countries by name on human rights grounds has substantially increased.  The Council’s criticism of an increasing number of violator States has not only strengthened its legitimacy; it has decreased to a certain degree the Council’s highly disproportionate focus on the conduct of a single UN Member State, Israel. 

While there remain many aspects of the Council’s performance that States should continue to work to improve, and while the Council still devotes a disproportionate degree of its country-specific action to Israel, JBI’s review finds that US engagement has had beneficial effects on the Council’s performance.  The United States should continue its efforts by pressing Council members to convene special sessions on emerging human rights crises whenever they occur and by proposing and encouraging others to put forward resolutions that identify by name the perpetrators of serious human rights violations worldwide.  It should also continue efforts to ensure the Council’s credibility and professionalism, including with respect to Israel.

JBI’s detailed documentation and analysis of trends over time, as well as background information, can be found in the full analysis below.