Hillary Clinton, human rights address, UN in Geneva, 6 December 2011
Update 06:00, transcript available GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have surprised more than one person in her audience at the United Nations Palais in Geneva Tuesday evening when her speech on human rights focused, not on the hot topic of Syria, but on a group whose rights rarely get this level of government attention: the gay community, worldwide.
She outlined steps the US is taking to redress wrongs against what she referred to as the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community: LGBT persons.
The Department of State, she said, is launching the Secretary’s Global Equality Fund, contributing more than $3 million to the “public-private partnership initiative to advance the human rights of LGBT people”.
The State Department will seek partnership commitments from donor governments, corporations, and foundations.
She also noted that the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) will use the Global Equality Fund to support:
- programmes that document violations of the human rights of LGBT individuals, provide legal assistance
- advocates to provide emergency assistance to NGOs and human rights defenders who face threats from governments or societies
- “public dialogue” that enhances public awareness, such as inclusive civic education and cultural activities
The new initiatives complement existing programmes, the State Department says in a fact sheet issued Tuesday evening. Since 2010, it has provided emergency assistance to over 40 LGBT advocates in 11 countries throughout Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, for example.
Clinton gets standing ovation from the crowd
Clinton receives a standing ovation from the packed room
Clinton, dressed simply in a dark violet-blue suit, arrived on time and delivered her speech in a brightly lit and fully packed Assembly Hall.
She looked quite small in the large room, but her firm voice and 30 minute speech, given without pause or hesitation, held her audience.
She was given a standing ovation at the end of her speech.
Clinton’s address was given at the UN to commemorate Human Rights Day 2011 (10 December).
Her initial tribute to the history of human rights and the UN led her into a long introduction where she kept the focus of her talk a surprise. She described an “invisible minority”, harassed, beaten and killed around the world, “one of the remaining human rights challenges of our times”: the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.
She described this as a “sensitive issue for many people”, an issue on her agenda, a difficult but urgent matter that must be addressed.
Gay and human rights are the same, Clinton tells packed room in Geneva
Gay rights and human rights are the same, Clinton told the crowd, even if the Universal Declaration of 1948 didn’t specifically mention the LGBT community: being an LGTB person doesn’t make you less human.
This article is republished with permission from IP Watch
By William New
Revised EPO Patent For Conventional Broccoli Has Public Interest Ramifications
To patent or not to patent, the great broccoli question
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A patent for a conventionally bred form of the common household vegetable broccoli appears to be on its way to acceptance by the European Patent Office following a change to the patent by the company filing it, according to sources. The decision not to revoke the patent, which has been the subject of protests and now calls for action in national courts, could clear the way for hundreds of other vegetable patents to follow, a source said.
In a rather legal format, the EPO announced on 25 October that an oral hearing in the so-called “broccoli” case had been cancelled, which observers say clears the way for approval of the patent in question. The cancellation of hearing came from the removal of objection by competing companies to the patent filer.
The move calls into question the bounds of patentability on plants and animals, after the EPO appeal board last year rejected patents on conventional breeding such as occurs in nature. The European Patent Office Enlarged Board of Appeal was asked to review the patentability of a grant on broccoli, and another patent on a tomato. The patented broccoli and tomato plants were not genetically modified, but rather simply bred conventionally as farmers have done for ages, according to sources.
Plant varieties are not patentable and are protected under a sui generis system at the International Union for the Protection of Plant Varieties (UPOV).
The board in December 2010 decided that “essentially biological processes for the production of plants (or animals)” are excluded from patentability (IPW, Biodiversity/Genetic Resources/Biotech,10 December 2010).
The broccoli and tomato cases, one patented by Plant Bioscience Ltd. (EP 1069819) and the other by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture (EP 1211926), had been brought before the EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal after France-based seed cooperative Limagrain Group, Swiss biotech company Syngenta, and multinational food company Unilever filed complaints, respectively. Plant Bioscience already markets in the United Kingdom a “new variety” of broccoli made from conventional breeding methods.
AUSTRALIA – The Australian government vetoed on 25 October an attempt to bring a private war crimes prosecution against Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa while he is visiting the country.
Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard however, urged Sri Lanka to address claims of serious human rights violations. In addition, Australia urged the UN to probe alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka has persistently denied that its troops committed atrocities while battling the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who were crushed in an offensive that ended in May 2009, bringing the 26-year conflict to a close.
Link to: Khaleej Times Online, AFP
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Cautious enthusiasm is coming from the West for the unexpected announcement late Monday Swiss time by the Myanmar junta that it will free 6,300 prisoners. The news came via state media, which did not mention political prisoners, referred to as prisoners of conscience, but at the same time a newly formed official human rights body openly urged the country’s leaders to free the estimated 2,100 political detainees.
Monday 10 October US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, during a speech in Bangkok noted that “I think it would be fair to say that we will match their steps with comparable steps and we are looking forward in the course of the next several weeks to continuing a dialogue that has really stepped up in recent months.”
The country appeared to distance itself somewhat from Chinese influence last week when it said it will not go ahead with a major dam project with China.
Links to other sites: BBC, Houston Chronicle, New York Times,
US Ambassador to the UN Eileen Donahoe at the UN in April 2011 - Photo UN/Pierre Albouy
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Seven countries were singled out by US Ambassador to the UN Eileen Donahoe Wednesday when she told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that the US “remains deeply disturbed by ongoing human rights violations around the world”.
Iran, Burma, DPKR, China, Cuba, Venezuela and Zimbabwe came in for sharp criticism in specific areas, in her Donahoe’s statement.
The US accusations came on the same day as the highly controversial death by lethal injection of an inmate in Georgia, found guilty of murder. Troy Davis maintained his innocence even as he was being injected. Amnesty International’s programme to abolish the death penalty has accused the US of human rights abuses for the use of the death penalty by several states.
Participants of the 18th session of Human Rights Council in Geneva - Photo Jean-Marc Ferré UNIS
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A panel of five independent UN rights experts reporting to the Human Rights Council unanimously rejected the conclusion of the Palmer Report that says Israel’s blockade of Gaza is legal.
On a statement produced by the UN in Geneva on 13 September, the panel says it rejected the Palmer Report findings because the blockade had subjected Gazans to collective punishment in “flagrant contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law.”
“The Palmer report was aimed at political reconciliation between Israel and Turkey. It is unfortunate that in the report politics should trump the law,” said Richard Falk, Special Rapporteur on human rights, on the statement.
According to the panel, the blockade should immediately cease as “the people of Gaza must be afforded protection in line with international law.”
For the United Nations experts, “decisive steps must be taken to defend the dignity and basic welfare of the civilian population of Gaza, more than half of whom are children.”
Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the right to food said at least two-thirds of Gazan households are food insecure, and “evidence has shown that the so-called ‘easing’ of the blockade has not led this to improve.”
SUDAN – Human rights groups, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, say Sudanese armed forces “have carried out deadly air raids on civilians in rebel-held areas of the Nuba Mountains that may amount to war crimes.”
“The Sudanese government is literally getting away with murder and trying to keep the outside world from finding out” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s Senior Crisis Response Advisor.
The rights groups said researchers had investigated a total of 13 air strikes in the Kauda, Delami and Kurchi areas which had killed at least 26 civilians and wounded more than 45 since mid-June.
Further details: Human Rights Watch, Yahoo News
KOSOVO – The Associated Press is reporting that the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, EULEX, has named a US prosecutor to investigate claims brought forth by a Swiss lawyer that Prime Minister Hashim Thaci led a criminal network that sold organs of civilian captives during the 1998-1999 Kosovo war.
John Clint Williamson who currently serves as a Special Expert to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, served previously as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues.
Williamson will be in charge to investigate the claims brought forth in a draft report presented in December 2010 by the Swiss Dick Marty, member of the Council of Europe.
In the report Marty claims that Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was a leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an ethnic Kosovar-Albanian guerrilla which was behind the trafficking.
The report implies that Albanian organized crime may be involved even today, in trafficking. It also cites evidence of organ trafficking in Kosovo and brutal treatment of some 500 Kosovo Serb prisoners before they disappeared, by members of KLA.
Marty, a lawyer from canton Ticino, is known for taking on tough subjects such as uncovering the CIA flights over Europe which cemented his reputation.
Links to other sites: draft report on COE web site, GenevaLunch’s background, EULEX
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The US Mission in Geneva is host Thursday, from 13:00-15:00, to an interactive webcast from the UN Palais on “The Human Voice of Freedom: The Internet and Human Rights”. The session is part of the current session of the Human Rights Council.
The US Mission description for the session: “The webcast will feature human rights activists from across the world, along with highly regarded experts in the field of social media, to discuss the importance of a free Internet to the promotion of human rights and freedom of expression. This discussion will focus on the grass roots issues important to this issue. With activists from Uganda, Egypt, China, Burma, Korea, Indonesia and Tunisia, and with UN diplomats and civil society representatives from across the world in attendance, this discussion will shed a direct and unusually focused light on this timely issue.”
Guests can sign in to the free online event here.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland and Chinese experts in a number of areas related to human rights paid visits Thursday 10 March to Biel/Bienne and to French-speaking canton Bern Thursday to examine how minority group issues are dealt with in Switzerland. The two countries have been holding regular “dialogue” meetings since 1991 “with the aim of encouraging an improvement of the human rights situation,” the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA)notes in a statement issued Thursday evening.
Both areas are on the language divide in Switzerland and face issues of education, training, political representation and other minority problems. The visit included a presentation on a pilot bilingual education project.
“The discussions focused in particular on issues such as the death penalty, torture, the status and situation of minorities in Switzerland and China, freedom of religion, as well as on issues related to detention in the two countries, to the UN Human Rights Council’s Review Conference and the Universal Periodic Review,” the DFA says.
“The parties agreed to continue a number of cooperation projects, such as an exchange of experts in the field of the administration of punishments as well as on the dimension of human rights in the economy.”
China’s delegation included experts in the fields of human rights, justice, public security, the economy, minorities and religions.
Republished with permission from IP Watch
By Catherine Saez
World Health Organization (WHO) members 19 January raised strong concerns that a working group they mandated last May to address problems with WHO policy on counterfeit and substandard medicines has yet to be formed – with four months remaining before it must report back to members.
One delegation called for a halt to WHO activities on anti-counterfeiting until the outcome of the working group is accepted by member states.
WHO Director General Margaret Chan told members of the WHO Executive Board today that a first meeting of a dedicated working group would be held in late February. The Board is meeting from 17-25 January.
Countries said falsified medicines were a threat for global public health but according to some delegates, the solution cannot be dominated by intellectual property rights enforcement concerns.
The UN health agency’s HIV/Aids strategy also was discussed Tuesday with a request from countries to emphasize prevention.
Duvalier leaves hotel with police escort
Update: Baby Doc Duvalier, as Haii’s former dictator is popularly known, was escorted by police from his hotel in Port-au-Prince Tuesday evening 18 January, Swiss time, after meeting with some of the country’s top judicial officials. Several hours of questioning later, charges were pressed against him. They include financial corruption and possibly human rights charges, CNN says, citing its own sources.
Human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had been urging Haitian authorities to detain and charge Jean-Claude Duvalier, who unexpectedly arrived in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince 17 January claiming he wanted to help Haiti one year after the earthquake that devastated the country. Haitians still do not know who is to be their next president after last year’s contested elections.
Duvalier’s arrival has taken the US and French governments by surprise, with the USA denouncing his return and French officials saying they had no prior knowledge of his trip. The French ambassador to Haiti, Didier Le Bret was quoted in the Miami Herald as saying: “He’s a simple French citizen, he’s allowed to do what he wants to do.”
French foreign minister Michele Alliot-Marie has come under fire for France’s timid reaction to the riots that toppled long-time French ally, former Tunisian President Ben Ali.
Duvalier was president-for-life from 1971 to 1986, when he was ousted in a popular uprising against the excess of corruption and severe repression of his government. He has since lived in exile in France.
Switzerland has kept frozen some CHF6 million in assets claimed by the Duvalier clan since Baby Doc fled the island, despite several legal challenges over the years. Several court decisions in 2010 will result in the money being returned to Haiti to improve its infrastructure, at some point in 2011.
Dick Marty, Swiss rapporteur for the Council of Europe (photo, COE)
Brussels, Belgium and Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Evidence of organ trafficking in Kosovo and brutal treatment of some 500 Kosovo Serb prisoners before they disappeared, by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), are two of the damning details that are part of a report made public 14 December by the Council of Europe.
The draft report, by Dick Marty, member of the Council of Europe from Switzerland, was published on the COE’s web site Tuesday with the agreement of the chair of the legal affairs committee Christos Pourgourides.
Among its allegations: Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was a leader of the ethnic Kosovar-Albanian guerrilla group KLA that was behind the trafficking. The report implies that Albanian organized crime may be involved even today in trafficking.
The long-awaited report, which was undertaken by Marty in July 2008, was the result of allegations of prisoner abuse and trafficking in human organs made in her memoirs in 2008 by Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The book provoked heated debate at the time, not least because De Ponte, despite her position, seemed to show little or no official followup by national and international authorities of crimes of which she had some knowledge.
The new report, the COE says in its introductory remarks, shows why: international organizations were overwhelmed and under-staffed at the end of the war in former Yugoslavia, details that surfaced 10 years after the facts were hard to verify, and rumours were rife. The new report promises to provoke yet more debate, at the very least, given the council’s strong words:
Couples have four family name options when they marry in Switzerland, but the European Court may change this
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss government has been told by the European Court of Human Rights to pay a Swiss-Hungarian couple €10,000 in damages and reimburse them €4,515 in legal costs for discrimination against dual national couples. The two have been fighting Swiss marriage laws that prevented both of them from keeping their original family names.
The couple, who live in canton Bern, took their case to the European Court after a Swiss high court refused to overturn a ruling by the canton. The European court’s decision in the case, Losonci Rose and Rose v. Switzerland, is not final, but Switzerland has not said if it will appeal.
The man is Hungarian and the woman has Swiss and French nationalities. Both are over age 55. They argued that changing their names in France and Hungary would be too difficult, and she also argued that as a senior administrator in the Swiss federal government she is well known under the name she had before her marriage, so she should not be required to change her name. The two decided that he would take her name but the law stipulates that it must be added after his own. She kept her name, unchanged, when they married in 2003.
Problems arose when he tried to use the name Losonci alone.
Julian Assange, in Geneva, denounces US abuse of human rights
Reproduced with permission from Intellectual Property Watch
By Catherine Saez
In a police-secured, airless room full of Geneva journalists, Julian Assange, creator and director of Wikileaks, today gave details of what he described as United States abuse of human rights in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, as well as an alleged muzzling of US press on those subjects. The United States will undergo its first Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council tomorrow, 5 November.
Wikileaks, a non-profit media organization that became globally known for releasing highly confidential documents, was invited to speak at the initiative of the International Institute for Peace, Justice and Human Rights, a Geneva-based non-profit organization. Wikileaks, which released 22 October some 400,000 confidential documents revealing human rights abuses covered by the US army during the Iraq war, is under high pressure, according to Assange. “We have never faced such difficulty as in the past three months,” he said.
Gontard case friction easing with Swiss, Colombian cooperation; $27 billion victim compensation programme high on Colombian gov’t agenda
Vice President Angelino Garzon listens to questions during a sit-down meeting with the press in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – “Our goal is that in 15 years, lands can be given back to the farmers exiled from their homes and that social programmes will be in place to help them,” Vice-president Angelino Garzon of Colombia told GenevaLunch during a visit to Geneva Thursday 14 October.
The second highest representative of the new Colombian government elected earlier this year, was in Geneva furthering his government’s agenda with the Swiss government, the United Nations and international organizations.
One of the most-talked about topics on his agenda was the “victim compensation programme” that seeks to give land back to the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by violence in Colombia. The UNHCR estimates that over 3 million people have been internally displaced, which is why land restitution is a top priority for the government.
The $27 billion dollar programme has already put 200,000 hectares in the State’s hands. “We are seeking to confiscate an additional 600,000 hectares from armed groups operating illegally in the country,” he added.
Although the long-awaited plan may still be far in the future, Garzon believes that in Colombia the “political will to make this a priority is on everyone’s agenda.”
Implementing a broad land restitution programme with deep pockets may be viewed with distrust in a country where government agricultural subsidies that were geared to fostering peasant land productivity became linked, in some cases, to shady deals for the rich.
Garzon thinks things will be different now. “The government is counting on additional laws to ensure that [once approved] the programme works well,” he says.
“Priority will be given to women who are heads of households, orphans, people with disabilities and the elderly.”
Colombia to “respect the judicial system” over Gontard affair, bilateral talks to start in January Read more…
Wipo praises IP protection Despite UN warning over commodity issues
Condensed with permission from IP Watch, Geneva
Several African nations signed a protocol on the protection of traditional knowledge and folklore at the beginning of August 2010, gaining the praise of the World Intellectual Property Organization. However, a United Nations report launched in January warned against the application of western legal and economic principles to collectively owned knowledge in traditional communities.
GL editor’s note: the new protocol steps up the debate over bio-piracy, bio-prospecting and the relationships between developping and developped countries where commercialization of traditional resources and knowledge are concerned. Much of the debate centres around, but is not limited to, the pharmaceutical industry.
By Catherine Saez
The protocol on the Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Expressions of Folklore was signed by nine states at the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (Aripo) diplomatic conference 9-10 August in Swakopmund, Namibia.Aripo has 17 member states and “the remaining eight states, including Somalia, will have to accede to the protocol,” Emmanuel Sackey, head of Search and Examination at Aripo told Intellectual Property Watch. Sackey, who coordinates Aripo’s activities on the protection of traditional knowledge, genetic resources and expressions of folklore, said the nine states “will be required to deposit instruments of ratification.” Some states “have initiated the process for the ratification and accession,” he added.
It will enter into force after six contracting states have ratified or acceded to it, Sackey said.
New protocol to protect traditional knowledge against bio-piracy
The protocol is meant to “protect creations derived from the exploitation of traditional knowledge in Aripo member states against misappropriation and illicit use through bio-piracy,” according to the organization.
European court of human rights - Photo © Council of Europe
Strasbourg, France (GenevaLunch) – The European Court of Human Rights has concluded that a five-year separation of two unsuccessful asylum-seeking couples in Switzerland was contrary to the Convention on Human Rights.
The ruling favours two Ethiopian women who were not allowed to live with their husbands pending deportation. Each of them will be awarded over CHF6,000 in damages.
According to the documents, the four entered Switzerland illegally, on different dates between 1994 and 1998, seeking asylum. The couples, who met while their cases were being considered, were married in 2002 and 2003 in Lausanne, but by then their asylum requests had been turned down and they had been assigned to reception centres to await deportation.
Ethiopia, however, refused to accept them and they remained in the centres. The women were sent to centres in St Gallen and Bern, while the men remained in canton Vaud.
Ed. note: The IP Watch story was run Friday 4 June just as Australian police announced they are opening an investigation into Google’s Street View mapping methods there. The company called a halt to its vehicles in Australia in May.
By William New
IP Watch, republished with permission
Geneva, Switzerland – Legally speaking, there is “little doubt” that Google’s collection of WiFi data by its roving StreetView vehicles does not comply with the Swiss Data Protection Act, and the company is likely to come under new scrutiny in Switzerland possibly even resulting in “severe financial consequences,” a respected Swiss law firm has said. In a brief circulated yesterday, available here [1], the technology, media and telecoms practice of Geneva- and Lausanne-based BCCC law firm predicted that Google is likely to fall under new
scrutiny by the Swiss Data Protection Authority after a US federal court order barred the internet company from destroying data and ordering it to turn over two copies of the hard drive with the data.
Google also called attention to itself when, in response to an order from German officials to turn over data it had collected from WiFi networks within a certain deadline, it did not comply and instead sought more time to determine whether such a handover could violate communication regulations, the firm said. Google had first insisted the data were not as extensive as it later had to admit they are.
The company is likely to face continuing legal, oversight, and public trust problems in Europe and the United States for its involvement in, and handling of concern about, its collection of data, BCCC said.
Google’s data collection likely does not comply with requirements under Article 4 of the Swiss Data Protection Act, BCCC said, citing the principles of: legality – prohibiting deceitful data collection; good faith – requiring people to be fully informed; proportionality – only data that is necessary; finality – only used in the manner disclosed.
Google was not reached for this story.
The situation presents a difficult legal question for any high-tech company, [BCCC] said, as it must ensure its IT infrastructure and software not expose it to liability. “In a time when privacy is highly valued by citizens and customers, one should not be surprised to have a court consider a lack of due diligence or implementation of robust procedures to ensure users’ privacy and legal compliance as a fault, no matter how costly such as an audit is,” they concluded, “with potentially severe financial consequences not to mention the damage reputation suffered which might be hard to recover.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Rickard Falk, Geneva-based UN expert on Gaza, added his voice to that of Navi Pillay, UN Human Rights chief in Geneva, and other top UN officials, in calling on the international community to condemn Israel’s attack on a flotilla of six boats trying to break its embargo of Gaza.
But Falk’s words were some of the harshest yet: “Israel is guilty of shocking behavior by using deadly weapons against unarmed civilians on ships that were situated in the high seas where freedom of navigation exists, according to the law of the seas,” he said. “It is essential that those Israelis responsible for this lawless and murderous behavior, including political leaders who issued the orders, be held criminally accountable for their wrongful acts.”
Falk is the UN’s Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which have officially carried that name in the UN since 1967. Falk, who is an American, has been in his job since May 2008 and is considered by the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as its expert on Gaza issues. Falk in December 2009 issued a report on the damage caused by the then three-year-old blockade of Gaza by Israel.
Yury Kalinen, Russia’s deputy justice minister who has been harshly criticized by human rights groups and the media, has been fired by Russian President Dimtry Medvedev, with no reason provided in the announcement. Kalinen is widely considered to be the man who created a prison system noted for its violence and lack of respect for the justice system. A dozen top prison officials were fired in November 2009 by the president after a Moscow lawyer died in prison while awaiting trial. Kalinen was chief of the prison system from 2004-2009.
Links to other sites: Moscow Times, Ria Novosti
Title: Lecture: Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: With Manfred Nowak Professor of Law at Vienna University, Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, Vienna, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Member of the UDHR60 Panel of Eminent Persons and Former Swiss Chair of Human Rights, Geneva.
Date: 2010-03-10
Title: Lecture: Human Rights Investigations and their Methodology
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Lecture by Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights UNHCHR.
Date: 2010-02-24
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two United Nations (UN) special rapporteurs based in Geneva are calling on the Italian government to take strong measures to end the “growing xenophobic attitude” towards migrant workers in the Calabria region. Unrest in the area led to 53 people injured the first week of January and more than 1,000 migrant workers being sent to immigration centres in Bari and Crotone. Several of them are now being deported, says the UN.
UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Jorge Bustamante, and UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Githu Muigaiwelcomed, said in a joint statement issued Wednesday 13 January that while they welcome the steps the government has taken, they insist violence cannot be an answer to “difficulties under any circumstances.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Women human rights leaders are meeting in Geneva 8-10 December for the first Courage to Lead summit. The meeting brings together emerging women leaders and those with experience in human rights advocacy around the world. The US Mission to the UN says the meeting is designed to encourage exchanges, mentoring and collaboration among the women.
The summit is organized by George Washington University’s Eleanor Roosevelt Project and the Vital Voices Global Partnership, and sponsored by the US State Department, the International Labour Organization, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva will reopen a debate Thursday 15 October on the conduct of both sides in last winter’s brief war in Gaza, Palestine, between Israel and Hamas, the Gaza strip’s political authority. A report by former South African judge Richard Goldstone suggests both armed groups may have committed war crimes. It recommends that they conduct their own impartial investigations within six months or have the case referred to the International Criminal Court. A call by Libya for the UN in New York to take up the report by strongly rebuffed by Israel which said late Wednesday 14 October that as long as the report is “on the table” there can be no peace negotiations with Palestine.
The Palestinian Authority (PA), the nominal representative of the Palestinians, initially asked for the debate on the report to be deferred, but it came under sharp criticism from Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza strip since elections in 2007 forced out Fatah and the PA.
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Nestlé SA in Vevey says its subsidiary in Zimbabwe will stop buying milk Sunday 4 October from Gushunga Dairy, reportedly owned by Grace Mugabe, wife of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe. The Mugabes are both on Swiss and European sanctions lists which forbid financial transactions with over 200 individuals and some 40 companies in Zimbabwe, but the sanctions do not apply to transactions within Zimbabwe. The multinational in Vevey has been under pressure this week, particularly from British and South African media, for buying the milk.
The Vevey office issued a statement Friday morning 2 October: “The Dairy Board of Zimbabwe today informed the Gushungo Dairy Estate, and the seven other farms with whom Nestlé began working on a temporary basis in February 2009, that it is now in a position to resume purchasing their milk. Nestlé Zimbabwe therefore will no longer be receiving milk from these eight farms from Sunday 4 October.”
GenevaLunch asked Nestlé about the timing of the announcement from the board, coming right on the heels of public criticism of Nestlé.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Monday 14 September that an “intolerable” number of displaced people continue to live in camps”, and added that in the case of Sri Lanka “internally displaced persons are effectively detained under conditions of internment”. Some 280,000 civilians are interned in government-run camps waiting to be screened. In a reply to the council, Sri Lanka’s minister of disaster management and human rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, said that “this is furthest from the truth “, and pointed out that the civilians will be allowed to leave the “relief villages and welfare centers once they are screened”. The government is worried that former Tamil Tiger fighters may flee disguised as civilians. Samarasinghe said that almost 170,000 people had been registered and that 45,000 had been cleared to leave the camps or had already left.
The UN’s head of political affairs, Lynn Pascoe, arrived in Sri Lanka for two days of talks with the government on the slow pace of releasing Tamil civilians from camps where they have been held since the end of the war in May against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam separatist group. The BBC quoted Pascoe as saying, “We’re very concerned about the pace of progress,” before leaving New York. BBC, Bloomberg
Asst Secretary of State, Esther Brimmer © 2009 United States Mission
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Esther Brimmer, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, addressed the UN Human Rights Council as US representative, and announced 14 September that the US was committed to ensuring the council’s operational independence.
She pointed out that the US is already the council’s top donor, and that the US would continue to support the technical assistance programmes of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights worldwide. Brimmer added that the US record on human rights was not perfect, and that the US looked forward to its universal periodic review (UPR), a review mechanism that aims to improve the human rights situation in all 192 UN member states.
President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya has removed the country’s police commissioner, putting Mohammed Hussein Ali in charge of the postal service instead. He also removed seven top deputies, but the official statement on the changes gives no reason. Ali was brought in six years ago to clean up the police force, which had a reputation for corruption, but human rights groups in Kenya and outside, including Human Rights Watch and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, have accused the police of looting and raping during the 2007 election riots where more than 1,000 people died. The new man in charge is Mathew Iteere, who has headed what the BBC describes as the “elite General Services Unit – the feared police shock troops often called in to control civil unrest.” Initial reaction to the changes, inside and outside Kenya, appear to be cautiously positive. BBC World Service radio, Independent Online, South Africa and 28 August editorial in AllAfrica on reforms under discussion
