JBI Human Rights

JBI Condemns 'Defamations of Religion' Initiative Contrary to Human Rights

The Jacob Blaustein Institute convened an expert discussion on “Challenges to the UN Human Rights Agenda: Defamation of Religions” on October 6, 2010 featuring Professor Nazila Ghanea of Oxford University and  Jo-Anne Prud’homme, JBI’s former International Human Rights Officer. 

At the event, participants, including two dozen UN representatives to the Third Committee, JBI’s Chair E. Robert Goodkind, and Director Felice Gaer discussed with Ghanea and Prud’homme some of the worrisome initiatives underway in the UN to expand limitations on human rights, particularly universal human rights of freedom of expression and religion.

Professor Ghanea began the program with a presentation on the misuse of human rights law that has wrongly justified excessive limitations to free expression. She criticized the use of a ‘pick and mix’ approach that takes limitations on one right and applies it to another right. An analytic paper presenting norms prepared by her was distributed and can be found here: Download JBI Paper N Ghanea

Ms. Prud’homme discussed the tendency to conflate “defamation of religions” with incitement as set forth in article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and her presentation is available here: Download JBI Paper HR Note Prudhomme

As the JBI seminar made clear, and the talking points demonstrate, “defamation of religions” is not a human rights issue, it is incompatible with the legal concepts of incitement and defamation, and it is susceptible to use in defense of oppressive conduct. JBI also cautions states as to how they approach this issue, pointing out that states that fail to object to the “defamation of religions” initiatives at the UN General Assembly or Human Rights Council would be complicit in active efforts to undermine the effectiveness of the human rights system.

Many questions were raised about the four regional conferences on articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights being organized in 2010 by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The first of these is scheduled to take place in Vienna in January 2011.

Participants asked JBI to prepare talking points on the issue of “defamation of religions, which we have listed below and which can be found here: Download JBI Talking Points Defamation of Religion

JBI on Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities

The Jacob Blaustein Institute’s Genocide Prevention Project is working to clarify the extent of state obligations in terms of genocide prevention. At the request of the Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, JBI has under taken an extensive legal review, including consultations with a team of legal specialists and human rights experts, of the many indicators of genocide in order to identify the corresponding legal norms that can be invoked to remind governments of their obligations. 

The "risk factors" consist of a compilation of human rights abuses which have been recorded in the lead up to past genocides and their corresponding legal norms. The precursors can include a history of mass atrocities in a particular country; targeted violence against members of a particular group; the state-condoned use of dehumanizing, discriminatory hate speech against members of a particular group; employment and education practices that discriminate against specific groups; denial of citizenship to members of targeted groups; among other such practices. This list is not exhaustive, and pre-genocidal situations will have significant contextual differences that will require case-by-case analysis. The international community acknowledged the importance of establishing early warning mechanisms to effectively prevent the onset of genocide, most recently in the World Summit Outcome Document of 2005. 

States must be reminded that they have obligations to prevent genocide based on internationally accepted norms with which they are expected to comply. They must be provided with the information necessary to make them aware of the precursors to genocide and of the preventive steps they must take to halt potential genocidal acts. The importance and relevance of a normative framework for the prevention of genocide will better equip the Special Advisor to respond to situations that may appear pre-genocidal.

The "risk factors" listed in the Compilation are derived from international legal norms found in the major international and regional human rights treaties and jurisprudence. The risk factors do not refer to random acts but to severe and systematic abuses of human rights. Many of the rights associated with the risk factors are non-derogable as set forth in Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Though all of the risk factors in the compilation constitute violations of human rights and humanitarian law, each one in and of itself is a “necessary but not sufficient causal factor” of genocide. However, when one and/or more risk factors appears in combination with others and in certain circumstances including deteriorating political, economic and legal conditions in a society, they may well contribute to the onset of genocide. The presence of one or more risk factors therefore does not necessarily mean that genocide will take place, but it should serve as an early warning to a state that it should take measures to mitigate the risk.

The Compilation of Norms is in its near-final stages of review. It will serve to clearly set out the legal basis for genocide prevention within already existing norms of international law, and facilitate with identifying specific situations of possible concern. 

JBI Facilitates Panel at Human Rights Funders Group

At the invitation of JBI Administrative Council member Michael Hirschhorn, who has been serving as Executive Director of the NY-based International Human Rights Funders Group, JBI facilitated a panel discussion of experts who examined current challenges and means of addressing them through international human rights bodies.

Speakers included Martin Scheinin, UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights While Countering Terrorism, Gerald Staberock, Global Security Program Director, International Commission of Jurists, and Salvador Tinajero,  Human rights officer at the Mexican Mission to the UN in Geneva. Felice Gaer moderated the program for JBI.

More than a dozen funders participated in a visit to better understand the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and what issues it was pursuing, where it was moving in progressive directions requiring outside support, and related topics.

JBI on Prevention of Torture: Transparency and Access of Independent Experts to All Places of Detention

The spring issue of the Human Rights Brief of the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law of the American University Washington College of Law (vol. 16, issue 4, Spring 2009 Special Edition) contained an article by JBI Director Felice Gaer, “Transparency and Access of Independent Experts to All Places of Detention:  Follow-Up Procedures.”  The article was based on Gaer’s remarks at a conference organized by the AU Washington College of Law in February 2009.

JBI on the Evolution of Women’s Rights within the UN

Women, International Law and International Institutions: The Case of the United Nations.  This article by JBI Director Felice Gaer considers the evolution of women's rights concepts and mechanisms within the United Nations. Gaer writes about this subject both as an historian of and a longstanding activist for women's human rights. She provides a critical history of how “women's” rights have been separated from and connected to “human” rights within the UN.

Gaer examines how the Commission on the Status of Women, the original UN division which inherited the agenda of the first wave of international feminism, dealt with many of the challenges raised by the activists and organization that proceeded it: making the shift away from great power, Euro American leadership; facing new political environments raised by anti-colonial and third world national developments; and expanding the feminist agenda beyond political and civil rights. By ending with an examination of the dilemma of enforcement that the UN still faces with respect to women's human rights, Gaer makes it clear that the subject of international feminism presents challenges that go beyond the academic, and is continuously linked with the efforts and freedom of the world's women.

Examination of China at UN Human Rights Council

When the UN decided to reform the Commission on Human Rights and create a new Human Rights Council, it added a requirement that every country go through a public review of its human rights record on all rights, and before a committee consisting of all members of the UN.

This so-called "Universal Periodic Review" (UPR) was seen by many UN diplomats as the procedure that would save the new Council and bring new country-specific scrutiny to every country.

As the Obama Administration was taking office in January 2009, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China held a roundtable briefing on the UPR and how non-governmental groups could be involved in the UPR of China.  JBI Director Felice Gaer was one of the panelists who provided testimony.

Gaer emphasized that since China had participated in the review of nearly 50 other states at that time, asking numerous questions about their compliance with human rights issues, it was appropriate that the U.S. and other states participate in a thorough review of  China. At the end of the process, countries are presented with recommendations, which they can either accept or reject.

As one prominent NGO, Human Rights in China noted, the PRC government rejected a large number of basic civil-political rights recommendations, including freedom of information, protection of lawyers and human rights defenders from attacks, freedom of religion (and movement) for Tibetans, Uihgurs, etc.