Human Rights in Ireland

Last month, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality last month held its second and final hearing on the proposed Mental Capacity Bill. The hearings focused on proposed amendments to the 2008 Scheme of the Mental Capacity Bill – the only published document to date which gives a concrete outline of what the legislation might look like. The 2008 Scheme has been widely criticised, by the Law Reform Commission, Amnesty International, the Alzheimers Society of Ireland and others, for failing to adequately protect the rights of adults who might become subject to guardianship – and for adopting an inflexible courts-based process for determinations relating to decision-making.

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On 22 March, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva adopted the draft resolution, proposed by the United States, on reconciliation and accountability in Sri Lanka. It was issued in a context of war crimes accusations over the conduct of Sri Lankan forces in the final throes of the conflict with the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) in April-May 2009, including a chilling documentary from Channel 4’s Jon Snow which has been influential in turning international opinion against Sri Lanka’s president, Mr Rajapaksa, and his government. Read Full Post »

The Transitional Justice Institute (TJI) is hosting its 5th annual Summer School on Transitional Justice on the theme of: Gender, Conflict and UN Security Council Resolution 1325. The Summer School will be held from 25-29 June 2012 at the Jordanstown campus of the University of Ulster, located on the north shore of Belfast Lough, Northern Ireland. The Summer School is a week-long residential course, consisting of a series of interactive lectures, workshops and roundtable discussions.  It is aimed at both postgraduate students and practitioners working in the field of transitional justice and human rights.

This year the summer school will give a broad and comprehensive overview to the regulation of women’s rights and needs in conflict and post-conflict situations.  Given the recent ten year anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, a particular focus of the summer school will be on the creation, enforcement, and capacity of UNSC 1325 and other related United Nations Security Council resolutions to addressed the needs, exclusions and rights of women in conflict and post-conflict settings.

The academic faculty for the TJI Summer School includes experts on issues of gender and conflict Read Full Post »

Human Rights in Ireland is delighted to welcome this guest post from Julie McBride. Julie is a PhD Candidate at Queen’s University Belfast, researching the development of the war crime of child soldier recruitment in international criminal law, and a member of the United Nations Global Experts, specialising in international crime and transitional justice.

In the same week as Kony 2012 broke viral video records and the issue of child soldiers became the ‘cause du jour’, the International Criminal Court handed down its first judgment, in a case that had focused solely on the issue. At the end of an epic three-year trial that had suffered frequent delays and interruptions, Thomas Lubanga of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was found guilty of recruiting children for use in armed conflict.

Lubanga’s crimes took place during a tribal conflict between the Hema and Lendu in the eastern district of Ituri that took place between 2000 and 2003. The conflict was exacerbated by the involvement of the Ugandan army and by the attractive presence of a variety of rich mineral deposits in the region. Lubanga admitted being the founding president of the Union of the Congolese Patriots (UPC), a Hema political party, but denied leading its military wing, the FPLC. However, Prosecutors at the ICC argued that he had played a military role with the aim of maintaining and expanding his control over Ituri and its gold reserves. Lubanga was arrested in 2005 by Congolese authorities on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, Read Full Post »

The International Criminal Court delivered its first ever verdict in The Hague this morning in the case of Thomas Lubanga. Lubanga, who became the political leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots in 2002, had been charged with recruiting and using child soldiers in armed hostilities in the north-eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He pleaded not guilty to the charges and contended during trial that he did not take any part in the hostilities. Lubanga also argued that he was only the political leader of the UCP and was not the commander of the party’s armed wing. However, the Prosecution accused Lubanga of using boys and girls under the age of 15 as bodyguards, sex slaves and soldiers.

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The Department of Foreign Affairs has announced that Ireland is to sign the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). This is a welcome decision by the Government, though no date has been set for ratification. In many ways ratification is the most important step as it enables individuals to rely on the Optional Protocol, however the decision to sign the Protocol should be welcomed. The ICESCR was opened for signature, alongside its companion treaty, the International Covenant for Civil and Poltical Rights (ICCPR) in 1966 and came into operation in 1976. The decision to separate these rights is rooted in both Cold War politics and the belief of some states at the time and currently that Economic, Social and Cultural Rights should not have the same enforcement mechinisms and are of a different character to their Civil and Political Rights counterparts. This stance is also reflected in the status of the section on the Directive Principles on Social Policy in the Irish Constitution.

Ireland signed the ICCPR in 1973 and ratified it in 1989. In the same year, Ireland also ratified the ICCPR’s Optional Protocol, which allows individuals to take claims to the ICCPR’s attached Committee. The Optional Protocol for the ICESCR was not open for signature until 2008. ICESCR’s Optional Protocol also allows individuals to take complaints based on the treaty to its attached Committee (CESCR). Read Full Post »

Within its core obligations, the Fiscal Compact Treaty fails to secure basic values such as clarity and predictability. It omits express explanation of certain fundamental issues, which I want to clarify in order to inform debate on the document. This is a text rich in ambiguity. How that ambiguity will be resolved is critical. The ‘No’ side will cite the ambiguity as the space from which austerity will be imposed. The ‘Yes’ side will try to show the ambiguity is rooted in concessions to make the text weaker and more flexible. If we as a nation do vote yes, it should not be a passive yes. We often deride the referendum process – but it helps to stop and closely examine the text, to find out points of concern and act to defend our interests. If the referendum campaign identifies genuine concerns, the government must take steps to mark out our interpretations, to build support for our interpretations.

It is clear that the drafters, so long familiar with the self-contained, uniquely self-perpetuating universe of European Union Law, have been passive in dealing with some key factors which emanate from the fact that this intergovernmental treaty. Its terms and interpretation will be guided by the rules of general public international law. I believe there are key omissions and ambiguities in the document, which actually offer opportunities to both the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ sides in the forthcoming referendum campaign. There are two pretty standard clauses you would expect to be in here, that are not.

(1)    A clause regulating withdrawal from or revocation of the Treaty

(2)   A clause regulating the ability of parties to lodge reservations or interpretive declarations Read Full Post »

We are delighted to welcome another guest post from Dug Cubie. Dug is researching a PhD in the Faculty of Law at University College Cork, and is a Government of Ireland Research Scholar in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has now entered the sixth day of negotiations with the Syrian authorities over allowing access for humanitarian assistance to the neighbourhood of Baba Amr in Homs. The Syrian authorities have cited security concerns for the denial of access to the ICRC and the Syrian Red Crescent, claiming that the neighbourhood is booby trapped and landmined. Yet the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, has stated that he has received “grisly reports” of summary executions and torture by Syrian troops, and it is alleged that the delay in allowing access is so that Syrian forces can hide evidence of such killings. Meanwhile, the Irish authorities have pledged €500,000 in humanitarian assistance to Syria, with Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore, highlighting the importance of immediate and unhindered access for all humanitarian agencies, and the danger of any militarisation of humanitarian assistance.

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We are delighted to host this guest post by Alan Desmond. Alan is writing a PhD at University College Cork, under the supervision of Professor Siobhán Mullally, on the regularisation of undocumented migrants in international and European Human Rights Law. Alan is a Government of Ireland Research Scholar in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

The immigration to Poland from the east which followed the collapse of communism in 1989 and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, coupled with EU accession negotiations in the 1990s, forced Poland to try to put in place a framework to deal with immigration. One of the methods employed in the field of irregular immigration was to implement regularisation or legalisation programmes, a process whereby unlawfully present non-EU citizens can apply for a legal status.

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In what was a surprise to most of the political establishment, the Taoiseach has just announced that the Government has decided to hold a referendum on the Fiscal Treaty. Speaking in the Dáil this afternoon Taoiseach Enda Kenny stated:

Throughout the process leading to this new Treaty, the Government has consistently said that the final text would be referred to the Attorney General for her advice as to whether a referendum was required to ratify it in Ireland. At this morning’s Cabinet meeting, the AG conveyed her advice that, as this treaty is a unique instrument, outside the European Union treaty architecture, on balance, a referendum is required to ratify it. On foot of this advice, the Government has decided to hold a referendum on this issue in which the people of Ireland will be asked to give their authorisation for the ratification of this treaty.

We here at Human Rights in Ireland had identified a number of possible reasons why a referendum might be required, centering mainly on the unclear demands of Article 3 of the Treaty, the potential for enforcement by the European Court of Justice and the conditioning of the disbursing of European Stability Mechanism funds on compliance with the Treaty’s terms. Read Full Post »