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Pacific lawyers urged to assist in human rights reporting
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Posted on Oct 26 2008
Pacific countries will now report to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations and other U.N. member states on their human rights records under a new human rights reporting mechanism, a regional gathering of lawyers heard last week in Port Vila.
Attending a weeklong workshop on international human rights law and its relevance for the Pacific organized by the Pacific Regional Rights Resource Team of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, the lawyers were told that the recently introduced Universal Periodic Report process helped guide countries, through open dialogue and recommendations, in implementing changes to ensure the human rights of their citizens were fully protected.
RRRT/SPC Human Rights Adviser Imrana Jalal said the UPR mechanism, passed by the UN General Assembly in 2006, also provided an opportunity for Pacific Island countries to bring Pacific challenges, achievements and needs in the area of human rights to the attention of the international community.
“The beauty of reporting to human rights committees is that it provides a regime which allows for progress to happen for Pacific Island countries,” Jalal said.
Tonga was the first Pacific country to submit their Universal Periodic Report earlier this year. Tuvalu is scheduled to present its report to the council this December and Vanuatu in 2009. Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia are scheduled to report in 2010 and Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, and Solomon Islands in 2011.
As a guest speaker at the workshop, Justice Vui Clarence Nelson of the Supreme Court of Samoa encouraged the lawyers to be vigilant in their roles as protectors of the rights of citizens.
The workshop, which brought together 35 lawyers from 10 Pacific Island countries, also looked at the issues of climate change, HIV, and domestic violence in relation to human rights and international law.[B][I] (PR)
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