Cebo.org is a collegial approach to information sharing between ethics-based
organizations with NGO status at the United Nations. Please contact member parties regarding the
positions of their respective organizations on matters expressed in this online journal.
February 24, 2006
Posted 9:09 PM
by Mary
UN RIGHTS CHIEF ADDS VOICE TO CALL FOR SPEEDY ADOPTION OF NEW HUMAN RIGHTS BODY New York, Feb 24 2006 11:00AM Failure by the United Nations General Assembly to approve the proposed new Human Rights Council could immeasurably damage the cause of human rights, and there is no reason to believe that further negotiations would produce a better mechanism, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned. "The proposal presented by the President of the General Assembly to establish the Human Rights Council provides a unique opportunity to start putting in place a reinvigorated system for the promotion and protection of fundamental freedoms around the world and deserves the support of Member States," High Commissioner Louise Arbour said. "Failure to adopt the proposal threatens to set back the human rights cause immeasurably," Ms. Arbour declared in a statement, adding her voice to those of Secretary-General Kofi Annan and General Assembly President Jan Eliasson in calling for speedy approval of a new Council with higher status and greater accountability to replace the much-criticized Human Rights Commission that now meets yearly in Geneva. "The text submitted to the General Assembly by its President has the features to allow the future Council to deal more objectively, and credibly, with human rights violations worldwide," she said, noting that it sets standards for new member countries, who will be asked to make an explicit commitment to promote and protect human rights and provides for the suspension of members who commit gross and systematic abuses. Ms. Arbour echoed Mr. Annan's statement on the proposal's release yesterday that while no delegation would get everything it wanted - indeed, Mr. Annan himself said he would have preferred States be elected by a two-thirds majority - the Council could be a basis for more effective human rights protection. "Let us be clear: the proposal now before the General Assembly is the result of compromise. It cannot be an ideal blueprint. And there is no reason to believe that more negotiating time will yield a better result," she said. She stressed that unlike the Commission, the Council would review periodically the records of all countries, beginning with its members, no country would be beyond scrutiny, and no longer could countries use membership of the UN's premier human rights body to shield themselves or allies from criticism or censure for rights breaches. The Council will have higher standing as a subsidiary body of the General Assembly, meet year round as opposed to the six-week annual session of the Commission, and its members will be elected by a majority of all 191 UN Members. But, like Mr. Annan, Ms. Arbour warned that it was vital for the international community to make the necessary changes in the culture of defending human rights for the Council to succeed. "It was in large part its failure to make this change - its inability to reinvent itself after laying down the framework for the international human rights system - that hobbled the Commission. The case of Rwanda is sadly instructive," she said, referring to the genocide of up to 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu extremists in the Central African country in 1994. "There the Commission's procedures worked, yet the investigator's warnings went unheeded. The political will and commitment of the international community will be as important to making the new Council work as any changes in structure or working methods."
February 20, 2006
Posted 5:05 PM
by Mary
From YubaNet.com World European Diplomats Call for Guantanamo Closure Author: Deutsche Welle Published on Feb 20, 2006, 07:55 The British, French and German ambassadors to Washington called for the US to close its Guantanamo "war on terror" prison camp, and the French envoy called it "an embarrassment." Three key European ambassadors stepped up pressure on US authorities over the weekend, after a report by UN human rights experts called for the camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to be shut as soon as possible. "The sooner it is closed the better it will be for the image of the United States, not only as a military and political (power) but also as a moral leader in the world," German Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger said. France's envoy, Jean-David Levitte, told CNN television that "Guantanamo is an embarrassment, and so it has to be solved one way or the other." And British Ambassador Sir David Manning reaffirmed Prime Minister Tony Blair's comment last week that the US camp for detainees seized in the global offensive launched after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was "an anomaly." Commission recommends closing "We understand the context. You've lost a lot of people," said Manning. "It's difficult to find the right line to draw between your duties as a government for security and safeguarding liberty, but it is clearly an anomaly, and it needs to be dealt with." The camp at Guantanamo has some 500 inmates, most of whom have never been charged. Controversial since its establishment, it re-emerged into the international spotlight after a group of human rights experts commissioned to write a report on the camp said some practices at Guantanamo were tantamount to torture. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan distanced the United Nations from the report, which was commissioned by the UN but carried out by independent human-rights experts. At the same time, he clearly supported its message, saying that "sooner or later," Guantanamo would have to be closed. He added that he hoped a decision would be made quickly. "This is not a report from the UN or the UN secretary general," Annan clarified in a statement in New York. He said he didn't agree with everything in the report. "But the basic point -- that one cannot detain individuals in perpetuity, and that charges have to be brought against them and be given a chance to explain themselves, prosecuted, charged or released -- I think is something that is common under any legal system." According to Annan, the US is walking a fine line with its Guantanamo dealings. "The basic premise is, we have to be particularly careful to keep a balance between effective anti-terror measures, and individual freedom and human rights," he warned. This balance seems to have been lost in Guantanamo, and the Geneva conventions are not being respected. Therefore, he said, "I think sooner or later, Guantanamo will need to be closed. The US government has to decide this. And I hope they do it as quickly as possible." For its part, the United States has rejected calls for the camp to be shut, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Annan was "flat wrong" to call for its closure.
February 19, 2006
Posted 10:52 AM
by Mary
Annan Says US Should Close Gitmo Prison By Edith M. Lederer The Associated Press Thursday 16 February 2006 United Nations - Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday said the United States should close the prison at Guantanamo Bay for terror suspects as soon as possible, backing a key conclusion of a UN-appointed independent panel. White House spokesman Scott McClellan rejected the call to shut the camp, saying the military treats all detainees humanely and "these are dangerous terrorists that we're talking about." The panel's report, released Thursday in Geneva, said the United States must close the detention facility "without further delay" because it is effectively a torture camp where prisoners have no access to justice. Annan told reporters he didn't necessarily agree with everything in the report, but "the basic premise, that we need to be careful to have a balance between effective action against terrorism and individual liberties and civil rights, I think is valid." He said he supported the panel's opposition to people being held "in perpetuity" without being prosecuted in a public court. This is "something that is common under every legal system," he said. "I think sooner or later there will be a need to close the Guantanamo (camp), and I think it will be up to the government to decide, and hopefully to do it as soon as is possible," the secretary-general told reporters. The 54-page report summarizing an investigation by five UN experts, accused the United States of practices that "amount to torture" and demanded detainees be allowed a fair trial or be freed. The panel, which had sought access to Guantanamo Bay since 2002, refused a US offer for three experts to visit the camp in November after being told they could not interview detainees. Annan said the report by a UN-appointed independent panel was not a UN report but one by individual experts. "So we should see it in that light," he said. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the report will be presented to the UN Commission of Human Rights, which appointed the panel, when it convenes on March 13 in Geneva. Manfred Nowak, the UN investigator for torture who was one of the panel's experts, told The Associated Press in Geneva that the detainees at Guantanamo "should be released or brought before an independent court." "That should not be done in Guantanamo Bay, but before ordinary US courts, or courts in their countries of origin or perhaps an international tribunal," he said. The United States should allow "a full and independent investigation" at Guantanamo and also give the United Nations access to other detention centers, including secret ones, in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, Nowak said by telephone from his office in Vienna, Austria. "We want to have all information about secret places of detention because whenever there is a secret place of detention, there is also a higher risk that people are subjected to torture," he said. The United States is holding about 490 men at the military detention center. They are accused of links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime or to al-Qaida, but only a handful have been charged. The UN investigators said photographic evidence - corroborated by testimony of former prisoners - showed detainees shackled, chained and hooded. Prisoners were beaten, stripped and shaved if they resisted, they said. The report's findings were based on interviews with former detainees, public documents, media reports, lawyers and questions answered by the US government, which detailed the number of prisoners held but did not give their names or the status of charges against them. Some of the interrogation techniques - particularly the use of dogs, exposure to extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation and prolonged isolation - caused extreme suffering, the report said. "Such treatment amounts to torture, as it inflicts severe pain or suffering on the victims for the purpose of intimidation and/or punishment," the report said. The International Committee of the Red Cross is the only independent monitoring body allowed to visit Guantanamo's detainees, but it reports its findings solely to US authorities. Legislators and journalists have been allowed in on guided tours but few are permitted to see interrogations. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the UN report "clearly suffers from their unwillingness to take us up on our offer to go down to Guantanamo to observe first-hand the operations." McClellan, the White House spokesman, echoed Whitman, saying "it's a discredit to the UN when a team like this goes about rushing to report something when they haven't even looked into the facts. All they have done is look at the allegations." Although his statement did not address specific allegations, the Pentagon has acknowledged 10 cases of abuse or mistreatment at Guantanamo, including a female interrogator climbing onto a detainee's lap and a detainee whose knees were bruised from being forced to kneel repeatedly. In Strasbourg, France, the European Parliament condemned the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and renewed its calls for the detention center to be closed. Human rights activists also supported the investigators' findings. Amnesty International said the report was only the "tip of the iceberg." "The United States also operates detention facilities at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq and has been implicated in the use of secret detention facilities in other countries," an Amnesty statement said. Many of the allegations in the report have been made before. But the document represented the first inquiry launched by the 53-nation UN Human Rights Commission, the world body's top rights watchdog.
February 14, 2006
Posted 8:51 PM
by Mary
The DPI/NGO Section regular weekly Briefing on 9 February 2006, focused on the Avian Flu. Dr. David Nabarro, UN System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza, Mr. Kim Moon-Hwan, Director, Human Rights Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Republic of Korea, and Dr. Sanjay Sinho, Health Director, CARE, talked about the threats and challenges of the possible pandemic of avian flu (AI). Kim Moon-Hwan listed several national and international meetings that have been taking place since September last year where solutions on how to handle the current situation were high on the agenda. Governments pledged huge funds to prepare this epidemic. Mr Moon-Hwan also stressed the importance of working on national level together with the civil society. This requires communication with the farmers to give them an understanding of the importance of the avian flu threats and the need for their cooperation. When the Republic of Korea had its outbreak of AI in 2003, the government fully reimbursed the farmers in their losses. The Korean government has outlined different areas to address: reduce human exposure, transparency, information sharing and coordinating vaccine development. Sanjay Sinho spoke about the disease’s devastating impact on poor communities. He initiated his speech with describing the work that Care did in Viet Nam at the community level. Starting with the importance of fighting the flu at the source and by giving them simple instructions on hygiene like how to wash their hands properly and avoiding physical contact with the birds. He stressed that often the simple instructions were the most effective ones but sadly the ones that were disregarded. Mr. Sinho said that the organization works at a local level and how important it is to gain the farmers trust and enhance the communication between them so that they can prevent the disease for spreading out. David Nabarro briefed the NGO community on the particular virulence of the Avian Flu. The Avian Influenza, also called the bird flu, is specially dangerous because of the way it travels. Starting in Asia, the migrating birds have carried the disease from country to country and with the recent outbreak in Nigeria, also moving westbound from continent to continent. The great danger of this type of influenza is that it might change form, spreading more easily from human to human. Mr. Nabarro listed his six priorities to work with preventing an epidemic: Situation and risk assessment, more effective communication, Animal health and livelihood support, to have the health service ready, new products and service, and to get the world ready to deal with a pandemic. Which he believes, could be a global catastrophe. The panel discussion was followed by a question-and-answer session. A question was raised about how we can stop the spread if it starts spreading from human to human. Dr. Nabarro said that the most important advice was to stay at home for 2-3 months, distant yourself socially (wear a mask if you have to be among people), and to not visit hospitals if you do get sick.
February 13, 2006
Posted 8:51 PM
by Mary
Published on Monday, February 13, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times Report: U.S. Is Abusing Captives A U.N. inquiry says the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay at times amounts to torture and violates international law. by Maggie Farley NEW YORK - A draft United Nations report on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay concludes that the U.S. treatment of them violates their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constitutes torture. It also urges the United States to close the military prison in Cuba and bring the captives to trial on U.S. territory, charging that Washington's justification for the continued detention is a distortion of international law. The report, compiled by five U.N. envoys who interviewed former prisoners, detainees' lawyers and families, and U.S. officials, is the product of an 18-month investigation ordered by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The team did not have access to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Nonetheless, its findings — notably a conclusion that the violent force-feeding of hunger strikers, incidents of excessive violence used in transporting prisoners and combinations of interrogation techniques "must be assessed as amounting to torture" — are likely to stoke U.S. and international criticism of the prison. Nearly 500 people captured abroad since 2002 in Afghanistan and elsewhere and described by the U.S. as "enemy combatants" are being held at Guantanamo Bay. "We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the U.S. government," said Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture and one of the envoys. "There are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture." The draft report, reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, has not been officially released. U.N. officials are in the process of incorporating comments and clarifications from the U.S. government. In November, the Bush administration offered the U.N. team the same tour of the prison given to journalists and members of Congress, but refused the envoys access to prisoners. Because of that, the U.N. group declined the visit. Nowak said he did not expect major changes to the report's conclusions and recommendations as a result of the U.S. government's response, though there would be amendments on minor issues. Navy Lt. Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said the Defense Department did not comment about U.N. matters. The report is not legally binding. But human rights and legal advocates hope the U.N.'s conclusions will add weight to similar findings by rights groups and the European Parliament. "I think the effect of this will be to revive concern about the government's mistreatment of detainees, and to get people to take another look at the legal basis," said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch. "There are lots of lingering questions about how do you justify holding these people." The report focuses on the U.S. government's legal basis for the detentions as described in its formal response to the U.N. inquiry: "The law of war allows the United States — and any other country engaged in combat — to hold enemy combatants without charges or access to counsel for the duration of hostilities. Detention is not an act of punishment, but of security and military necessity. It serves the purpose of preventing combatants from continuing to take up arms against the United States." But the U.N. team concluded that there had been insufficient due process to determine whether the more than 750 people who had been detained at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002 were "enemy combatants," and determined that the primary purpose of their confinement was for interrogation, not to prevent them from taking up arms. The U.S. has released or transferred more than 260 detainees from Guantanamo Bay. It also rejected the premise that "the war on terrorism" exempted the U.S. from international conventions on torture and civil and political rights. The report said some of the treatment of detainees met the definition of torture under the U.N. Convention Against Torture: The acts were committed by government officials, with a clear purpose, inflicting severe pain or suffering against victims in a position of powerlessness. The findings also concluded that the simultaneous use of several interrogation techniques — prolonged solitary confinement, exposure to extreme temperatures, noise and light; forced shaving and other techniques that exploit religious beliefs or cause intimidation and humiliation — constituted inhumane treatment and, in some cases, reached the threshold of torture. Nowak said that the U.N. team was "particularly concerned" about the force-feeding of hunger strikers through nasal tubes that detainees said were brutally inserted and removed, causing intense pain, bleeding and vomiting. "It remains a current phenomenon," Nowak said. International Red Cross guidelines state: "Doctors should never be party to actual coercive feeding. Such actions can be considered a form of torture and under no circumstances should doctors participate in them on the pretext of saving the hunger striker's life." One detainee, a Kuwaiti named Fawzi Al Odah, told his lawyer this month that he stopped his five-month hunger strike under threats of physical abuse. Thomas B. Wilner, a lawyer at Shearman & Sterling in Washington who has represented 12 Kuwaitis held at Guantanamo Bay, said that Odah told him that in December guards began taking away clothes, shoes and blankets from about 85 hunger strikers. Wilner said Odah described guards mixing laxatives into the liquid formula they gave to about 40 prisoners through the nose tubes, causing them to defecate on themselves. Wilner said Odah told him that on Jan. 9, an officer read what he said was an order from Guantanamo Bay's commander, Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, stating that hunger strikers would be strapped into a restraint chair and force-fed with thick nasal tubes that would be inserted and removed twice a day. After hearing a neighboring prisoner scream in pain and tell him not to go through it, Odah reluctantly ceased his hunger strike, Wilner said. "I stopped it because they forced me to stop," Wilner quoted Odah as telling him. "They stopped it through torture." Pentagon officials said the number of hunger strikers had dropped to four. Officials have been forcefeeding detainees since August, but they started leaving the long nasal tubes in place in September after detainees complained that having them jammed down their noses to their stomachs and removed twice a day caused intense pain, bleeding, vomiting and fainting, Wilner said. In January, he said, after harsh treatment resumed and hunger strikers were left strapped in the restraint chair in their own excretions, most gave up their protest. "It is clear that the government used force to end the hunger strike," Wilner said. "It was brutality purposely applied to them to make them stop." White House spokesman Scott McClellan dismissed Odah's allegations Thursday. "Well, yes, we know that Al Qaeda is trained in trying to make wild accusations and so forth," McClellan said in response to a question about Odah. "But the president has made it very clear what the policy is, and we expect the policy to be followed. And he's made it very clear that we do not condone torture, and we do not engage in torture." Wilner said Odah had not been accused of being part of Al Qaeda. The International Red Cross is the only party allowed by the U.S. government to have access to prisoners and monitor their physical and mental health, but the organization is forbidden from making its findings public. The five U.N. envoys are independent experts appointed by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to examine arbitrary detention, torture, the independence of judges and lawyers, freedom of religion, and the right to physical and mental health. The five had each been following the situation at Guantanamo Bay since it opened in January 2002. They decided in June 2004 to do a joint report and asked the U.S. government for access to all detention centers. "This report is not aimed at criticizing," Nowak said. "It is looking at what international human rights law says about Guantanamo. We are hoping that this report will actually strengthen the dialogue."
February 8, 2006
Posted 11:10 PM
by Mary
UN Continues to Get Positive, Though Lower, Ratings With World Public worldpublicopinion.org NGOs Get Top Ratings of All Global Actors Questionnaire/Methodology Despite a relatively poor year for the United Nations, publics in most countries continue to view the UN as having a positive influence in the world, according to a new BBC World Service poll of 32 nations. However, ratings are a bit lower than they were a year ago. Nongovernmental organizations received the highest ratings of all global actors. The poll of 37,572 people was conducted for the BBC World Service by the international polling firm GlobeScan together with the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland. The 32-nation fieldwork was coordinated by GlobeScan and completed between October 2005 and January 2006. In 30 of the 32 countries polled, a majority (23 countries) or a plurality (7) rated the United Nations as having a positive influence. On average 59 percent rated the United Nations as having a positive influence, while just 16 percent rated it as having a negative influence. However, among the 19 countries that were polled in fall 2004 and again in the current poll, the percentage giving the UN a positive rating is down an average of 10 points. (See below for more details). Steven Kull, director of PIPA comments, “Given that the United Nations has been under the cloud of corruption investigations, has failed to achieve any significant breakthroughs in Iran or Darfur, and has been largely missing in action in Iraq, it is surprising that the UN’s rating have not slipped more. Apparently the United Nations is widely seen as a benign influence at the same time that more people have reservations about its performance.” Of all the global players examined in the poll, NGOs (“Non-governmental organizations such as environmental and social advocacy groups”) got the highest grades with an average of 60 percent rating them as having a positive influence on the world, just 12 percent negative. NGOs were rated positively across all 32 countries polled, in 25 by a majority. As is discussed in a separate WPO article, the World Bank received the highest rating among global economic actors. On average 55% gave it a positive rating. The IMF is not as well regarded as the World Bank, but still, on average a plurality of 47 percent see it as having a positive influence and just 21 percent see it as having a negative influence. The lowest ratings among global economic actors, and of all global actors polled on, were for global companies. On average just 41% gave them a positive rating and 26% a negative rating. A growing factor in world affairs is world public opinion. The influence of world public opinion was rated positively in every single country—a distinction only shared by NGOs—in 15 countries by a majority, and 17 by a plurality. On average, 51 percent saw public opinion as positive and only 17 percent as negative. An unusually large 32 percent did not provide an assessment. The news media received muted approval, getting positive ratings from a 48 percent plurality and negative ratings from 24 percent. Twenty-six rated it positively (16 a majority, 10 a plurality). Five countries rated it negatively (3 a plurality, 2 a majority). Canada was divided. Variations in Ratings of Global Players The United Nations Europeans and Asians are especially positive about the United Nations. The only exceptions were Argentina, which was divided, and Iraq, which had a 40 percent plurality saying the UN has a negative influence while 34 percent thought it has a positive influence. Interestingly, 63 percent of Iranians view the UN as having a positive influence in the world, suggesting they might see the UN as an honest broker in Iran's current dispute with Germany, France, Britain and the US over its nuclear program. As mentioned, there has been a distinct drop in ratings of the UN (on average 10 points). In some countries the drops have been sharp—France dropped from 73 percent viewing it positively to 52 percent; South Africa from 73 percent to 48 percent; Great Britain from 76 percent to 66 percent; and the US from 59 percent to 52 percent. But no countries slipped into a predominantly negative view. The one country to go up substantially was Mexico—rising from 41 percent to 62 percent positive. Positive views of the United Nations rise with education and income. Younger people are more enthusiastic than older people. Christians are more positive than Muslims, but a majority of Muslims are still positive (Christians 62%, Muslims 56%). NGOs Europeans and North Americans are especially positive— Britain 70 percent, US 64 percent, France 80 percent. The only countries to be at all lukewarm were Mexico (39% positive, 23% negative), India, Sri Lanka and Saudi Arabia, where majorities did not take a position. Positive views go up with education and income.
February 1, 2006
Posted 10:40 PM
by Mary
On January 17, 2006, ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I recognized the right of 6 victims to participate in proceedings before the Court, including at the investigation stage. The decision affirms the new role victims have as active participants in their own quests for justice. The Pre-Trial Chamber concluded that "the right [of victims] to express, in a general way, their views and concerns regarding the investigation of a situation and to present evidence before the Pre-Trial Chamber cannot have negative consequences for the investigation." The Chamber further stated that "the Statute grants victims an independent voice and role in proceedings before the Court." The Chamber considers that "the personal interests of the victims are affected in a general manner at the investigation stage, since the participation of victims at this stage enables facts to be clarified, those responsible for crimes committed to be sanctioned and reparations for harm suffered to be requested." This is a historic step which we must capitalize on in our discussions about the Court. Try to alert your local media outlets and organize events which highlight this.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"War does not determine who is right--only who is left." - Bertrand Russell
| 
