Human Rights Council: Concept/Topic

The Right to Defend Human Rights - How to Protect Human Rights Defenders

Committee Chairs: Michèle Bruelhart, Thierry Beyeler

"Everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels." (1)

Human Rights Defenders (HRD) in every part of the world struggle to promote the respect and protection of Human Rights. However, while improving the situation for others, they have often been subjected to violations of their own Human Rights. In her report on HRD (E/CN.4/2005/101), the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders, Hina Jilani, notes that HRD have been target of defamation, harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture or even execution. Furthermore, an increasing number of States take the fight against terrorism as a pretext to impede the work of HRD. Measures to counter terrorism include more restrictive legislations that give State authorities wider possibilities to act against HRD (e.g. detention on the grounds of "involvement in terrorist activities"), thus putting in danger their legal protection.

Whether they gather and disseminate information about violations of Human Rights, mobilize public opinion, contest the impunity of Human Rights violators or educate the public about their rights - HRD are essential in the improvement of Human Rights. It is therefore crucial for the States to redress some of the obstacles rending their work more difficult:

• The role of the media in the defence of Human Rights
  One of the most important functions of the HRD is the gathering and disseminating of information about Human Rights abuses. These are tasks the media are specialised in. With the new form of "embedded journalism" that we have witnessed during the 2003 Iraq war, battlefields directly reach our homes. Because of the access they are often granted, media can act as powerful HRDs. However, in many States freedom of expression remains a dream and independent journalism does not exist. The fight against terrorism in some cases enabled States to harden their legislation and to oppress those persons criticising the authorities. Furthermore, some media are not always impartial and their power can also be used to hide Human Rights abuses rather than to bring them to the light.
  
  In GIMUN 2006, States party to the Human Rights Council will try to find ways and means to improve the working environment of the media in order to strengthen their role in the defence of Human Rights: How to ensure the respect of the right to freedom of speech? What measures could be taken to prevent self-censorship? Should States be forced to publish all information on their Human Rights record? How to assure that the media have access to relevant information (e.g. accessibility of states archives; closed meetings of legislative bodies; secret sessions of governments)?
  
  On the other hand, States need to better determine the limits of the diffusion of information where the media are complicit to violations of Human Rights. How to avoid that the media owned by States, violating the rights of their citizens, cover the actions of their government? Is embedded journalism a chance to defend Human Rights by making warfare more transparent or is there a risk to violate the rights of the victims by showing their immediate sufferings? Should there be action taken by States to prevent the diffusion of videos on the internet displaying the killing of hostages? These are only some of the issues that need to be addressed in order to allow the media to defend Human Rights more effectively.
  
  
• The role of multinational corporations (MNC) in protecting HRD
  Today, more than half of the top economies in the world are multinational corporations, not states. However, it remains unclear as to what extend Human Rights apply to their business practices. The first principle of the UN Global Compact (2) states that "Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights", while the second principle calls upon businesses to "make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses". Nevertheless, reports on MNCs violating the right to form trade unions, the freedom to associate or even to (openly or tacitly) support violations of Human Rights committed by military or police forces, are frequent. Through their economic activities, MNCs sometimes indirectly strengthen brutal regimes that violate the rights of HRD (in particular members of trade unions risk being subjected to Human Rights violations). The increasing significance of the role of the private sector in the fields of Human Rights has led the UN Secretary General to establish this year (2005) a Special Representative on transnational corporations and other business enterprises (Mr. John Ruggie) (3).
  
  However, it is important to note that the GIMUN 2006 Human Rights Council will not discuss the impact of MNCs on human rights in general, but focuses explicitly on their role regarding the work of HRD (4). What obligations do MNCs have with reference to HRDs (e.g. the right to form a trade union; the obligation to negotiate with representatives of indigenous people on the conditions for the use of land and resources) (5)? Should they be held accountable for abuses of the rights of HRDs? As mentioned above, the gathering and disseminating of information is one of the main tasks of HRD: what measures can be adopted to enhance transparency of MNCs? Furthermore, governments sometimes work hand in hand with multinational enterprises by providing police- or military force to brutally disperse protest meetings of trade unionists. How to prevent abuses by MNCs and States in order to better protect HRD?
  
  
• NGOs protecting Human Rights and the limits they face
  Nowadays, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have an increasing influence on the international policy arena previously reserved to states. Even if not all NGOs have been established with the purpose of protecting and promoting human rights, an important number of HRD working for NGOs are devoted to the improvement of democracies, the establishment of political parties and elections, the reduction of ethnic conflict and the promotion of human rights in general. NGOs are now indispensable for the protection of human rights in our world, whereas their working conditions became more and more difficult.
  
  As a matter of fact, NGOs are in many cases confronted with a hostile working environment. Far too often states insist on their sovereignty and refuse the entry of those non-state actors on their territory. Time and again, governments are passing restrictive legislation to regulate the status of NGOs, including state-controlled licensing systems. Even more drastically, especially under the pretext of taking measures against terrorism, an increasing number of NGOs is shut down by governments. Moreover, the existing NGOs are frequently penetrated or even created by the state and used as an instrument to increase the regime's legitimacy.
  
  Therefore, the GIMUN Human Rights Council offers an occasion to analyse the importance of NGOs as Human Rights Defenders. Millions of people rely on the support granted by NGOs in order to improve their living conditions, many United Nations declarations or resolutions are initiated by NGOs and commonly they constitute the only reliable source of information from conflict regions.
  
  It is also time to negotiate on solutions concerning the status of NGOs in many countries, whereas attention will be focused on NGOs as HRD. How to forestall that meetings of NGOs are hindered by states? How to avoid arbitrary detention of or imposition of penalties on NGO members by states? Which possibilities are there to allow NGOs better access to information in order to make exact analyses of human rights violations? Finally, how to prevent states from strengthening their national legislation in the attempt to limit the existence of NGOs?

In order to improve the HR situation, we depend on the work of the HRD. Hence, it is crucial to facilitate their work as much as possible. More precisely, the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders should be adopted by states as a legally binding national instrument. The establishment of an independent national human rights mechanism which can receive information from human rights defenders on violations coud be another possibility.

In that sense, the issues mentioned above have to be addressed by the member States of the GIMUN HRC and viable solutions should be found.