The first version of the inaugural Geneva Declaration on Human Rights at Sea has been published by Human Rights at Sea after the initial drafting session was held in Switzerland in March 2019 at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. The principal aim of the Declaration is to raise global awareness of ... Read more

The first version of the inaugural Geneva Declaration on Human Rights at Sea has been published by Human Rights at Sea after the initial drafting session was held in Switzerland in March 2019 at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.

The principal aim of the Declaration is to raise global awareness of the abuse of human rights at sea and to mobilize a concerted international effort to put an end to it.

The concept of human rights at sea rests on  four fundamental principles:

1. Human rights apply at sea to exactly the same degree and extent that they do on land.
2. All persons at sea, without any distinction, enjoy human rights at sea.
3. There are no maritime specific rules allowing derogation from human rights standards.
4. All human rights established under treaty and customary international law must be respected at sea.

The Declaration recognizes established International Human Rights Law and International Maritime Law, highlights the applicable legal assumptions and reflects the emerging development and customary use of the increased cross-over of the two bodies of law.

The Declaration was first announced to students in Malta on April 4 at the IMO International Maritime Law Institute (IMLI) during the second Human Rights and the Law of the Sea workshop held in co-ordination with the Stockton Centre for International Law; and has now been briefed at the World Maritime University, Malmo, Sweden, during the Empowering Women in the Maritime Community conference by the charity?s Iranian researcher, Sayedeh Hajar Hejazi.

The core drafting team comprises: Professor Anna Petrig, LL.M. (Harvard), University of Basel, Switzerland, Professor Irini Papanicolopulu, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, Professor Steven Haines, Greenwich University, United Kingdom and David Hammond Esq. BSc (Hons), PgDL, Human Rights at Sea, United Kingdom. It is supported by Elisabeth Mavropoulou LL.M. (Westminster), Sayedeh Hajar Hejazi LL.M. (Symbiosis India).

The first drafting round was supported with input and observers from multiple U.N. agencies, leading human rights lawyers, international and civil society organizations.

The second drafting session will be held in Geneva in May.

 

Source: https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/first-geneva-declaration-on-human-...

Every year, 25 million women across the world are forced to obtain unsafe abortions. The United States, through its foreign policy, is deeply complicit in the violation of these women?s right to life and equality under international law. International human-rights frameworks guard against these violations and hold the US and other countries accountable. The International ... Read more

Every year, 25 million women across the world are forced to obtain unsafe abortions. The United States, through its foreign policy, is deeply complicit in the violation of these women?s right to life and equality under international law.

International human-rights frameworks guard against these violations and hold the US and other countries accountable. The International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), for instance, details the basic rights and freedoms guaranteed to all people worldwide, including the right to life, the right to liberty and the right to equality. Such rights are not symbolic: they are grounded in the dignity of each human being and protected by international law.

Since 1966, 172 parties ? including the US ? have signed the ICCPR. It is one of the few human-rights treaties that the US has ratified. But today, the US imposes illegal abortion policies that brazenly violated its obligations under the Covenant and other binding provisions of international law.

The ICCPR spells out the right to access abortion services and safeguards against censorship. It also protects the right to nondiscrimination under Article 3; the right to life under Article 6; the right to be free from torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under Article 7; and the right to free speech and association in Articles 19 and 22.

US abortion restrictions on foreign assistance, including the global gag rule and Helms and Siljander amendments, breach these fundamental obligations.

The global gag rule prohibits non-U.S. organizations from receiving global health assistance funding if they advocate around, provide, educate or counsel on abortion services as a method of family planning ? even though these organizations use non-U.S. funds to do so. First enacted by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, the policy has been rescinded and reinstated along party lines with each presidential administration. The impact of the rule in the relevant countries is compounded by each iteration of the policy.

The Helms Amendment (in place since 1973, as a reaction to Roe v. Wade) prohibits any foreign assistance from being used for using abortion as a method of family planning. The Siljander Amendment (in place since 1981) prohibits the use of funds for lobbying for or against abortion.

By restricting women?s abortion access, these laws and policies violate their right to life by forcing them to obtain the procedure in unsafe ways. They also threaten women?s access to health care more generally, because many non-U.S. organizations receiving global health assistance are forced to cut services or close.

The global gag rule stifles the speech of doctors and other health care providers, preventing them from informing their patients of all the medical options available to them. This censorship worsens stigma, particularly for individuals living with HIV and AIDS, sex workers, members of the LGBTQ community and people with disabilities.

We must hold our leaders accountable to the human-rights framework that the US and 171 other parties have agreed upon. As state parties prepare for the UN Human Rights Committee meeting on March 25, when they will report on the implementation of the ICCPR, we urge them to insist on access to safe abortion as a right.

The history of the US disregarding international human-rights standards should not be accepted as the status quo. As attacks on women?s rights escalate worldwide, it is more critical than ever that we take the US to task on standards it has promised to adhere to as a law-abiding country.

 

Source: https://www.passblue.com/2019/03/14/us-abortion-restrictions-violate-womens-h...

GENEVA – Nasrin Sotoudeh, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer jailed in Iran, was handed a new sentence on Monday that her husband said was 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. Sotoudeh, who has represented opposition activists, including women prosecuted for removing their mandatory head scarf, was arrested in June and charged with spying, ... Read more

GENEVA – Nasrin Sotoudeh, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer jailed in Iran, was handed a new sentence on Monday that her husband said was 38 years in prison and 148 lashes.

Sotoudeh, who has represented opposition activists, including women prosecuted for removing their mandatory head scarf, was arrested in June and charged with spying, spreading propaganda and insulting Iran?s supreme leader, her lawyer said.

She was jailed in 2010 for spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security ? charges she denied ? and was released after serving half her six-year term. The European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov human rights prize.

A judge at a revolutionary court in Tehran, Mohammad Moqiseh, said on Monday Sotoudeh had been sentenced to five years for assembling against national security and two years for insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Sotoudeh?s husband, Reza Khandan, wrote on Facebook that the sentence was decades in jail and 148 lashes, unusually harsh even for Iran, which cracks down hard on dissent and regularly imposes death sentences for some crimes.

The news comes days after Iran appointed a new head of the judiciary ? Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line cleric who is a protege of Supreme Leader Khamenei. The appointment is seen as weakening the political influence of President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate.

Iran, often accused of human rights abuse, said on Monday it had allowed U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore to visit last week at the head of a ?technical mission.

The visit, confirmed by a U.N. official, appeared to be the first in many years by U.N. human rights investigators who have been denied access by the government.

The U.N. investigator on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, raised Sotoudeh?s case at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, saying that last week she ?was reportedly convicted of charges relating to her work and could face a lengthy prison sentence.?

?Worrying patterns of intimidation, arrest, prosecution, and ill-treatment of human rights defenders, lawyers, and labor rights activists signal an increasingly severe state response,? Rehman said.

 

Story originally from: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/12/world/crime-legal-world/husband-...

 

The Federal Ministry of Human Rights of Pakistan recently started a campaign to raise awareness around child abuse that is happening in Pakistan at the moment. The campaign highlights how important it is for parents, teachers, and society at large to be vigilant and inform children about child predators. Like many other countries, child abuse ... Read more

The Federal Ministry of Human Rights of Pakistan recently started a campaign to raise awareness around child abuse that is happening in Pakistan at the moment. The campaign highlights how important it is for parents, teachers, and society at large to be vigilant and inform children about child predators. Like many other countries, child abuse in Pakistan is a serious issues which often goes unreported. This is the first campaign of its kind in the country and it has already received a warm response from both activists and the general public.

Child abuse is not a recent phenomenon nor restricted to a particular region. According to Sahil, an NGO working in child protection services, about 3,445 children (2017 girls and 985 boys) were abused in Pakistan in 2017. However, this number is much higher as most cases are not reported because of social stigma attached to the issue and the lengthy investigation process by the police. Unfortunately, the victims are often abused by their relatives, through business or someone they know and trust which leads many to remain silent.

In recent years, several child abuse scandals have shocked the nation. In 2016, the Kasur child abuse scandal made headlines and, in 2018, the rape and murder of six-year-old girl Zainab Ansari led to protests. These were widely discussed on social media and people demanded that the government punish the culprits and protect children.

Global Voices spoke to Shimaila Matri Dawood, a member of the Kasur Hamara Hai (KHH) group and the Managing Director of a media management company, to learn about their contribution to the campaign:

The Pakistani government has taken a number of steps to prevent child abuse. A National Child protection Centre has been set up by the Ministry which offers free education, counseling and medical treatment. A toll-free telephone Helpline (1099) has also been set up where human rights issues, including child abuse, can be reported.

Credit to https://globalvoices.org/2019/03/01/not-allowed-to-touch-campaign-is-raising-... for the story.

Africa?s human rights body has taken a step backward in recent times. How can the African Commission on Human and Peoples? Rights expect governments to heed its call to end discrimination if the commission itself is not setting the proper example? The African Commission on Human and Peoples? Rights (ACHPR) has always been responsible for ... Read more

Africa?s human rights body has taken a step backward in recent times. How can the African Commission on Human and Peoples? Rights expect governments to heed its call to end discrimination if the commission itself is not setting the proper example?

The African Commission on Human and Peoples? Rights (ACHPR) has always been responsible for responding to violence and human rights violations that African governments inflict on their populations. However, it has not always succeeded in avoiding discrimination in its own actions, as demonstrated by its recent decision to revoke the observer status it had granted to the Coalition of African Lesbians.

As a result of that decision, the 63rd session of the ACHPR, held last month in Banjul, Gambia, was not just a polite formality. Human rights defenders in general and LGBTI activists in particular are upset about the ACHPR?s discriminatory actions.

The theme of the session was the fight against corruption in Africa, but many human rights defenders who traveled to the Gambia expressed their concern about the independence of the ACHPR from pressures exerted by the African Union. The African Union considers CAL to be too bold, espousing notions that are contrary to African values ??and traditions.

LGBTI activists fear that the withdrawal of CAL?s observer status is a sign of trouble, since their mission is to combat Africans? discrimination against LGBTI people in general and in this case lesbians in particular.

Back in 2014, the ACHPR approved Recommendation 275, which calls on governments to fight discrimination against people on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. There were signs of positive changes in people?s attitudes and increasing respect for human rights and freedoms. But the latest action of the ACHPR has been a step backwards. A homophobic step backwards.

Human rights defenders are now united in denouncing this injustice. They call on the leaders of the ACHPR to recognize the commission?s responsibility for eliminating the new climate of fear that now reigns in African civil society.

They should realize that they cannot expect governments not to discriminate against LGBT people if the ACHPR itself does so.

To be a human rights defender means accepting the responsibility for defending the rights of everyone without exception. In this case, it means not discriminating against identity organizations such as the Coalition of African Lesbians.

Steeves Winner, the author of this article, is an activist for LGBTI rights in Cameroon who writes under a pseudonym. Contact him at steeves.w@yahoo.com