UN Human Rights Council Reports - Housing, Education, Sale of Children

UNITED NATIONS

Press Release

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COUNCIL DISCUSSES REPORTS ON FOREIGN DEBT,
MERCENARIES, HOUSING, EDUCATION, TRANSNATIONAL
CORPORATIONS AND COUNTER-TERRORISM

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Human Rights Council

25 September 2006

Also Hears Questions and Comments on Report on Sale of Children

The Human Rights Council today heard the presentation of reports on the effects of structural adjustment policies and foreign debt on the full enjoyment of all human rights; the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination; the right to adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living; the right to education; human rights and transnational corporations; and the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism.

Bernards Andrew Nyamwaya Mudho, Independent Expert on the effects of structural adjustment policies and foreign debt on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights, said three considerations were crucial if debt relief was to raise the expected benefits. Firstly, resources provided by the donor community by way of debt relief should be truly additional to existing and future development aid. Secondly, recognition ought to be made to the fact that each country bore the primary responsibility for its own development and realisation of human rights. Thirdly, civil society and independent national human rights institutions ought to continue to play an active role in monitoring the budgeting and spending of resources of additional heavily indebted poor countries and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative. Mr. Mudho also presented reports on his mission to Mozambique.

Juan Miguel Petit, Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, presented his report at the end of the afternoon on Friday, 22 September and the Council also heard questions and comments on his report today in the absence of the Special Rapporteur.

Speaking as concerned countries on the reports on the sale of children and on economic reform policies and foreign debt were the representatives of Albania, Greece, Mozambique and Iraq.
Participating in the interactive dialogue on the sale of children and on economic reform policies and foreign debt were the representatives of Cuba, Sri Lanka, Uruguay, Philippines, Finland on behalf of the European Union, Slovenia, Bangladesh, Mali, Russian Federation, Argentina, Costa Rica, Pakistan, Japan, United States, Peru, Sudan and Ecuador. The following non-governmental organizations also took the floor: World Organization against Torture, in a joint statement with several NGOs1, Indian Movement "Tupaj Amaru" and World Young Women's Christian Association.

Amada Benavides de Perez, Chairperson of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of people to self-determination, underlined two elements present in the new mandate of the Working Group. First, the mandate went beyond the traditional concepts on the use of mercenaries, as the Working Group had been asked to follow the activities of private firms offering military assistance, advice and security services in the international market. Second, the mandate dealt with the effects of this thematic focus on all human rights. The Working Group continued to deal with issues that had been undertaken by prior Special Rapporteurs with relation to the new definition of mercenaries and the consolidation of the international legal framework for the prevention and punishment of activities on recruitment, use, financing and training of mercenaries. The Working Group wished to put emphasis on the primary responsibility under international and national law by States to maintain public security, law, and order.

Speaking as concerned countries on the report on mercenaries were Ecuador and Honduras.

Participating in the interactive dialogue on mercenaries were Cuba and the Russian Federation.

Honduras exercised its right of reply.

Miloon Kothari, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, said forced evictions and displacement were taking place in countries world wide, from democratic to authoritarian States. The vast majority of forced evictions grossly violated a wide range of human rights and indicated a systematic disregard for recognised human rights standards on the part of States. The report presented an analysis of several identified obstacles to the effective realisation of housing and land rights for women, including homelessness among women, violence against them, discriminatory cultural and social norms and family or personal laws, multiple discrimination, participation of civic services and unaffordability of housing for women, and the impacts of natural disasters, forced evictions and HIV/AIDS on women. The Special Rapporteur spoke about his country visits to Iran and Cambodia.

Vernor Munoz Villalobos, Special Rapporteur on the right to education, said it was very important to contribute to the debate on the advancement attained on the realization of the right to education on girls' education, in view of the first assessment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). States had to increase their efforts to eliminate attitudes and discriminatory stereotypes, as well as customs and persistent practices that relegated women to an inferior position. Education was key to the elimination of these practices. It was worrisome to note that no State had been able to eliminate the gender gap comprising all aspects of social life. He also carried out a mission to Botswana.

John Ruggie, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, said the mandate touched on foundational questions in the evolution of modern international law and governance: to what extent, and how, should they be modified in order to manage the impact of non-State actors, in the case at hand, business enterprises? The stakes for people everywhere could not be higher -- previous eras of globalization had unravelled because they failed adequately to embed market forces within frameworks of rules and values that secured the needs of human community and the desire for social justice. The success of this mandate could help make globalization work for all. His bottom line was that the last thing victims needed was more unenforced declarations -- they needed effective action.

Martin Scheinin, Special Rapporteur on the protection and promotion of human rights while countering terrorism, said he had identified five "current trends" in counter-terrorism measures that entailed a risk of human rights violations, including the well-established trend of States resorting to the notion of "terrorism" to stigmatise political, ethnic, regional or other movements they simply did not like, and the recent trend of the international community risking to become indifferent to the abuse of the notion of terrorism, and instead calling for effective measures against "terrorism" without defining the term. There was also a most alarming trend of questioning or compromising the absolute prohibition of torture and of all forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. He had conducted his first country visit to Turkey.

Speaking as concerned countries on housing, education, transnational corporations and counter-terrorism were Iran, Cambodia, Australia, Botswana and Turkey.

Participating in the interactive dialogue on housing, education, transnational corporations and counter-terrorism were Switzerland, Chile, Morocco, Nicaragua, Finland, Argentina, China, Republic of Korea, United States, Portugal and Costa Rica.,

Zimbabwe exercised its right of reply.

The Council today held an extended meeting from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. The next meeting of the Council will be held at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 26 September when it will conclude its discussion on issues relating to housing, education, transnational corporations and counter-terrorism before taking up the reports of the Special Procedures on the situation of human rights in Somalia, Cuba and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Reports Presented to the Council

The Council has before it a report (E/CN.4/2006/46) entitled report of the Independent Expert on the effects of economic reform policies and foreign debt on the full enjoyment of all human rights, which reviews the latest developments on the G-8 debt relief initiative, and possible implications for the debt sustainability framework currently employed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. He welcomes the political commitment towards 100 per cent debt cancellation of multilateral debts owed to these institutions for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) completion point countries, as a step forward towards broader and deeper debt relief. The international community needs to ensure that these and other debt relief initiatives represent truly additional resources, and to consider additional measures and initiatives aimed at ensuring long-term sustainability through increased grant-based financing, full cancellation of other official multilateral and bilateral debt of HIPCs, as well as significantly more debt relief for low- and middle-income non-HIPC developing countries.

The Independent Expert also highlights the need to explore new mechanisms to comprehensively address the debt problems of these countries. He suggests that an independent peer review mechanism be instituted to determine, or provide alternative views on, a country's debt sustainability situation. Such a peer review would serve as an accountability mechanism, with participation of independent national human rights institutions.

The report concludes with the following interim recommendations and proposals for the next steps in further elaborating guidelines: (a) welcoming the political commitment of the international community represented, in particular, in the G-8 initiative and taking note of recent developments with respect to debt sustainability; (b) extending by one year the time frame for the elaboration of draft guidelines and calling for holding an expert consultation; (c) urging States, international organizations, civil society and other stakeholders to submit their views and suggestions on possible elements for consideration in the draft general guidelines; and (d) encouraging the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to continue working on the issues of indicators as well as to cooperate with the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs, the World Bank and the IMF to integrate human rights considerations into MDG-based assessment of debt sustainability.

The Council is considering a report of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of people to self-determination (E/CN.4/2006/11) which presents the results the Group's first session, held from 10 to 14 October 2005 in Geneva. The Working Group met with representatives of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and consulted States and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations on implementation of the Group's mandate. Concerning its methods of work, the Working Group addressed the frequency of meetings, meeting location, whether the meetings should be private or public, the periodicity of the chairpersonship, the establishment of a complaint mechanism, and consultation with private sector actors and field missions. The Working Group decided to hold its second session in early 2006.

Concerning substantive areas of work, the Working Group agreed to concentrate initially on two issues: first, the role of the State as the primary holder of the monopoly of the use of force, and related issues such as sovereignty and State responsibility to protect and ensure respect for human rights by all actors. Second, the Group intends to address governmental agreements that provide private military and security companies and their employees with immunity for human rights violations.

An addendum to the above report (E/CN.4/2006/11/Add.1) presents the results of a meeting, held from 13 to 17 February 2006 in Geneva, which completed the Working Group's first session, held from 10 to 14 October 2005. The Working Group reviewed several country situations and considered appropriate action. The members also agreed to proceed with establishing a network of academics working on the study of mercenaries and mercenary-related activities; to undertake a comparative analysis of relevant national and regional legislation; and to recommend the convening of a high-level round table under United Nations auspices to discuss the role of the State as primary holder of the monopoly on the use of force.

The Council has before it a report (E/CN.4/2006/41 entitled report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context, which underlines a number of key areas where enhanced work will be needed in the future, by a range of actors, such as on land and property concerns and the impact of natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies on the right to adequate housing. Finally, the Special Rapporteur provides guidelines for States on development-based evictions, as a practical tool for implementation.

The Special Rapporteur confirms his use of an approach stressing the indivisibility of human rights, without which the right to adequate housing loses its meaning. Whereas this approach initially meant focusing on the interface between adequate housing as an economic, social and cultural right, and relevant civil and political rights such as the right to information and the right to the security of the home, the work of the Special Rapporteur has demonstrated repeatedly that the existing interlinkages go far beyond. An in-depth analysis of the multi-layered content of the human right to adequate housing necessitates the exploration of linkages with other related rights such as the rights to land, food, water, health, work, property, equality, inheritance, security of the person, and protection against inhuman and degrading treatment, with non-discrimination and security of tenure at the core.

In his recommendations the Special Rapporteur, in the context of the continued global housing crisis, requests the Council to continue the mandate on adequate housing, to initiate a process of adopting the guidelines on forced evictions that the Special Rapporteur has proposed, to consider recognition of land as a human right and to request States to arrest urban and rural apartheid and segregation and to control unbridled property speculation and land confiscations.

The Council is reviewing a report by the Special Rapporteur on the right to education (E/CN.4/2006/45) on girls' right to education which addresses the socio-cultural context of gender discrimination by defining the concept of patriarchalism, which underpins discriminatory behaviours. He denounces the negative impact on education, and especially on girls' education, of the persistent consideration of education as being a service rather than a human right and insists on the importance of ensuring not only girls' access to school but also their completion of the education cycle. The report identifies obstacles to education for girls, such as early marriages and pregnancies, child labour (especially domestic work) and armed conflicts. The Special Rapporteur draws attention to aggravating factors and highlights the key role of human rights education and its concrete implementation at the classroom level to combat gender discrimination and stereotypes. The report also summarizes replies received to the questionnaire sent to different stakeholders to solicit information on the realization of the right to education for girls, extracting major trends from the replies and validating his findings. The report provides a set of recommendations based on the four elements identified as components of the right to education, namely, availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability.

An addendum to the above report (E/CN.4/2006/45/Add.1) contains an account of the Special Rapporteur's mission to Botswana.

The Council is taking up an interim report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises (E/CN.4/2006/97) which is intended to frame the overall context encompassing the mandate as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General sees it, to outline the general strategic approach taken, and to summarize the current and planned programme of activities.

And the Council is today taking up a report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin Scheinin (E/CN.4/2006/98). Chapter I summarizes the activities of the Special Rapporteur since he took up his mandate in August 2005, pursuant to Commission resolution 2005/80. Chapter II gives an overview of the communications sent by the Special Rapporteur and replies received thereto from Governments between 15 August and 15 December 2005. In chapter III, the Special Rapporteur makes some preliminary observations on elements of a definition of terrorism as to the relevance of this issue for human-rights-conform responses to terrorism. Chapter IV consists of an analysis of the role of human rights in the review of Member State reports to the Counter-Terrorism Committee of the Security Council and sets out possible forms of cooperation between the Special Rapporteur and the Counter-Terrorism Committee. Chapter V contains brief reflections by the Special Rapporteur on certain issues of major importance that will require further elaboration in subsequent reports. The conclusions are contained in chapter VI.

An addendum to the above report (E/CN.4/2006/98/Add.1) contains a summary of communications sent to Governments and responses received. And an addendum to the above report (E/CN.4/2006/98/Add.2) contains an account of the Special Rapporteur's mission to Turkey.

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