Trafficking in Persons and Armed Conflict

Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin is the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism. She was initially appointed to this position by the UN Human Rights Council in 2017 and was re-elected by member States for a further three-year term in 2020. In this capacity she works closely with States and UN entities to advance human rights protections in some of the most difficult contexts globally. She is also a University Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, and a Professor of Law at the Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland.In this interview, Ms Ní Aoláin discusses her duties as Special Rapporteur and illustrates the current challenges to the humanitarian space in the context of counterterrorism (CT) regulation.

[Chile’s] advances over the past 25 years’. In the concluding statement of his visit, Kiai observed: The ghost of this era looms particularly large over the security sector, chiefly the police— and specifically the Special Forces— and their function in policing social conflicts and assemblies… I am particularly disturbed by the killing in July 2015 in El Salvador of Nelson Quichillao, a contract copper mine worker who was shot dead by Special Forces who used live ammunition during a protest calling for better pay and benefits. Authorities claim that the protest was not entirely peaceful . However, the police response raises serious questions regarding proportionality of response. Individuals retain at all times their rights to life and physical integrity, even if they become violent during protests, and it is the State’s duty to safeguard these rights… It is also imperative that the Government ensures that all employers cease anti-union activities such as targeting and firing workers for exercising their right to strike, which demeans the right. I urge the Government to continue taking measures to bring its legislation into full compliance with ILO Conventions 87 and 98 as urged by ILO’s Committee on Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations. It is clear to me that the government values the contributions of the private sector to the economy and policy. But it is not so obvious that it values civil society associations, including trade unions, in a similar manner. The Special Rapporteur’s drawing attention to the killing of Nelson Quichillao López is a welcome effort to raise awareness of the situation of the labour movement in Chile’s mining industry. Maina Kiai is due to submit his full report on Chile to the UN Human Rights Council in June 2016. We reported on the case in IUR 22.3 last year. While a police investigation into the case has been opened, reports at the time indicated that the strikers, unarmed, were shot at by Special Forces after they barricaded the entrance and halted production at Codelco’s El Salvador mine. Organised by the Confederación de Trabajadores del Cobre (CTC) union, the strike was part of a coordinated action across seven Codelco sites. CTC resorted to strike action on behalf of Codelco’s contract workers, after Codelco refused to negotiate on their pay and conditions of employment. According to the CTC, workers were building a dirt barricade with a bulldozer when police opened fire. Several other strikers were injured. The killing provoked furIn September 2015, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, noted that Chile continues to face ‘deep and significant social challenges’ INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 12 Volume 23 Issue 1 2016 O n 22 March 2016, thousands of workers and students took to the streets in Santiago de Chile to demonstrate their support for a general strike called by the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT), Chile’s largest national federation . The protestors were demanding the strengthening of trade union rights in the proposed labour reform Bill, as well as reforms to pensions and public health and an overhaul of the constitution. Labour reform has long been on the agenda for President Michelle Bachelet and the centre-left coalition Nueva Mayoría. In April, weeks after the demonstration and after over a year of negotiations, both houses of the National Congress (Cámara de Diputados and Senado) approved the labour reform Bill. Members of the opposition (centre-right) coalition Chile Vamos immediately announced that they would challenge the reforms in the Constitutional Court, a process which will delay the enactment of the Bill for a further 30 to 45 days. Among the most controversial aspects of the Bill are those concerning the union rights of contract workers and the regulation of strikes. The proposals have provoked strong opposition from the national employers’ organisation (la Confederación de la Producción y del Comercio, CPC) who allege that the reforms will privilege unionised workers in large enterprises over the country’s growing number of unemployed, and impact on wage bills and productivity. Moreover, these reforms are taking place in a highly volatile period for the country...

Since its foundation in 1945, the United Nations (UN) has taken many steps to improve the well-being of people with mental illness. This has occurred through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the various other core international human rights instruments, the Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and the Improvement of Mental Health Care (1991) and the Human Rights Council. While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the other initial human rights instruments are related to mental illness only indirectly, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) provided a more detailed consideration of the topic. In 2006, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) included mental illness under the umbrella of disability; this inclusion is currently transforming mental health legislation internationally. While much of this change is positive, protecting the rights and maximizing the agency of people with mental illness, there are concerns that an excessively rigid interpretation of the CRPD could reduce access to treatment and lead to stigmatization and criminalisation of the mentally ill. The 1991 UN Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and the Improvement of Mental Health Care were, by contrast, written with more nuanced consideration of the needs of people with mental illness, but lacked the legal weight of the CRPD. Within the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteurs and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also often consider the needs of people with mental illness. Despite these measures, however, more is needed.

Advocacy for protection is one of the great roles of the special procedures mandate-holders of the Human Rights Council. This chapter presents several examples of advocacy for protection. The normative recommendations of special procedures mandate holders contain numerous suggestions for the development of legal standards nationally, regionally, and internationally. A good example of this is the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing. In some countries however, especially those which were relatively developed and might not have the severe problem of either income poverty or human development poverty, the group suffering from social exclusion might dominate the set of extremely poor people, supplemented by conditions of income and human development poverty to the extent that they existed. The international community and all member States should thus take up the obligations for removing extreme poverty as a core element of their human rights obligations.Keywords: advocacy for protection; extreme poverty; human rights council; human rights obligations; legal standards; right to adequate housing; special procedures mandate-holders

The principle of equality – the belief that all human beings are born free and equal – along with the correlated prohibition on discrimination are foundations of society. Equality is one of the most basic aspects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a pillar on which the United Nations (UN) was founded in 1945. Yet, following the emergence of the coronavirus in December 2019, this long-established fundamental human right is being increasingly threatened. Indeed, as the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Fernand de Varennes, observed, “COVID-19 is not just a health issue; it can also be a virus that exacerbates xenophobia, hate and exclusion.”

Indigenous Peoples in Eritrea, 2019

This article examines states' voting records at the United Nations Human Rights Commission/Council during the period 1992–2008 on resolutions targeting specific countries, and tests competing hypotheses about voting behaviour derived from liberal and realist theory. I conclude that a liberal framework explains voting behaviour on resolutions addressing most states and show that democracies were more likely than non-democracies to support resolutions criticizing states with poor human rights records. However, I also show that the liberal framework fails to explain voting behaviour on resolutions addressing Israel because the issue uniquely polarized states according to geo-political groupings – Western democracies often opposed resolutions addressing Israel, but developing world states often supported these resolutions. These findings hold for both the Commission and its successor body: the Human Rights Council.

Following the establishment of the UN Human Rights Council, the then Secretary-General, KofiAnnan, termed the UN special procedures the ’ crown jewel ’ in the UN system.Earlier, a report to the former Commission stated that they were ‘ the essential cornerstone of United Nations efforts to promote and protect human rights ’and Surya Subedi, a former rapporteur, simply considers them ‘ the public face of the UN human rights system ’. They certainly occupy a unique position. Appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, each mandate reports annually to the Council and/or the General Assembly. The terms of the mandate may dictate the actual work undertaken or leave it open to the appointee. ‘ special procedures ’ is the generic term applied to the special mechanisms of the former Commission on Human Rights (now the UN Human Rights Council) by which individual experts are appointed to examine particular human rights issues, monitor specific countries or territories, develop specific guidelines or consider specific violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The mandates to which they are appointed are not dependent on treaties for their authority, but rather draw support from the terms of the UN Charter. This provides a degree of flexibility on sources (as they are not bound to particular treaties) and, as a consequence, special procedures can use whichever legal arguments and strategies best advance their mandate, embodying a truly integrated approach. Unsurprisingly, a range of users can and do engage with the special procedures. For the purposes of this chapter, the working definition proposed by Ellen Desmet is widely construed: ‘ [a] human rights user is any individual or composite entity who engages with (uses of) human rights ’. Individuals, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations, States themselves and institutions and entities within regional and international organisations are included. Users across Desmet's four categories are included – rights claimants, rights realisers, supportive users (e.g. advocates, defenders and NGOs) and judicial users (courts and tribunals, including, for the purposes of this chapter, UN monitoring systems). The question addressed is: are they system puppets or some (or all) of their users ‘ saviours? In order to determine the answer, the system of special procedures will first be outlined and the key literature identified, analysing the reality of their autonomy.

The 2008 Annual Meeting of American Society of International Law explored topic ?The Politics of International Law'. The organisers of Annual Meeting posed certain questions about this relationship in following terms: Critics contend that international law is really deployment of power politics, and that resolving disputes under auspices of international law in a judicialized forum serves only to ?launder' rule of powerful. The establishment of United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006 and its activities in its first years give occasion for an analysis of relationship between politics and law in human rights work of United Nations. The United Nations General Assembly, in preamble to its resolution establishing Council, recognised the importance of ensuring universality, objectivity and non-selectivity in consideration of human rights issues, and elimination of double standards and politicization. Keywords: American Society; human rights issues; international Law; politics; United Nations General Assembly; United Nations Human Rights Council

I am grateful to have the opportunity to share with you recent developments in law with regard to the human rights to water and sanitation in the United States. The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is a nonsectarian human rights and social justice organization related to the liberal religious tradition of Unitarian Universalism--advocating for human rights since the 1940s when the organization rescued children from Nazi repression in Europe. Faith-based institutions and service organizations are familiar with assisting families and individuals in difficulty. However, a disturbing problem has begun to introduce itself into the pastoral care of major faith institutions: families impacted by lack of access to safe drinking water in the United States. To illustrate the complexities of implementing a human right to water in the United States, and the gaps in protections, I will share an anecdotal experience. In one of our congregations a few years ago, we held a public lecture on the human right to water. After the event, a woman approached and told me that her well had failed because, she believed, the water table dropped from nearby (recently permitted) agricultural pumping. She had made arrangements with a neighbor for bathing, cooking, dishes and clothes washing, and drinking water for her and her three children. She explained that she had exhausted all of her options--she looked into digging a deeper well and purchasing a more powerful pump, which would cost thousands of dollars, and she was not eligible for financing. She approached the county to extend water services to her home; connections per household were $10,000 and twenty of her neighbors would also have to join the extension scheme. Litigating the damages through the legal system was not an option without the ability to pay for legal fees with the high costs of evidence to prove causality (the water lawyers on the panel can affirm the complexity of litigating water rights). Child Protective Services had learned of the situation and removed her children from her home, placing them in custodial care where the water bills are subsidized. She asked me, Can the human right to water help me? In the United States, the implications for water shutoffs go far beyond the extreme difficulty of losing access to water, to sanitation--it can mean that parents lose their children, that people are put out of their homes, or that their homes are foreclosed for unpaid water bills. As duty bearers and rights holders, parents have an obligation to provide for the welfare of their children. In rural areas, where residents and small communities rely on groundwater and household wells--and where environmental and hydrologic water resources and their management are out of their control--impacts on rural communities of decisions by government and private actors are especially difficult to predict, manage, and legislate. Where society gives preferential treatment to the highest and best use of water, and permits agricultural, industrial, mining and other extractive uses, we ultimately pass the burden of our economic priorities on to the individual. In many cases, these are the individuals who are least able to bear that burden. This is where human rights can assist in sorting through our fiscal and environmental priorities. Our churches, synagogues, temples, meeting houses, and mosques are also bearing the burden of decisions by public and private actors in the water and sanitation sector. In one of the early warning systems in our society--our faith institutions--alarm bells are ringing. The United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, Dr. Catarina de Albuquerque, reported her findings on the human right to water and sanitation in the United States to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2011. (1) She found that while the United States has made significant progress in ensuring access to safe, sufficient, affordable water and sanitation, there is evidence of serious problems with access for vulnerable populations. …

The main pillars of the United Nations human rights machinery are: the Secretariat; the human rights treaties and their monitoring bodies; the Human Rights Council (HRC); and the General Assembly. The small human rights division of the Secretariat was about to be transferred from the UN headquarters in New York to Geneva, a move that the then small non-governmental organisation (NGO) community and the tiny press corps interested in human rights tended to describe as further marginalisation of activities that were already attracting little interest. Today, the situation is fundamentally different from the one described under all the main pillars of the UN human rights system. This chapter describes some of the developments that have taken place and discusses some of the challenges that lay ahead. The debates on country situations and resolutions at the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and the HRC are characterised by allegations of double standards. Keywords: commission on human rights (CHR); human rights council (HRC); human rights treaties; non-governmental organisation (NGO) community; secretariat; United Nations human rights machinery

At the United Nations (UN) level, the expert human rights mechanisms are human rights treaty bodies and the special procedures mandate-holders and working groups established by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). This chapter addresses some of the key challenges of engaging in human rights diplomacy and discusses opportunities hidden in relying on diplomatic means for the promotion and protection of human rights. In laying out the case for a pro-active approach to human rights diplomacy, it relies on selected examples and recent milestones such as the Durban Review Conference that took place in Geneva in April 2009, the ongoing process of strengthening the UN human rights treaty body system. The chapter sheds more light on the role of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Author stresses that public advocacy and human rights diplomacy should always go hand in hand as both approaches complement and mutually reinforce each other. Keywords: advocacy; Durban Review Conference; Human Rights Council (HRC); human rights diplomacy; protection of human rights; treaty bodies; UN High Commissioner; United Nations (UN)

Women and girls of African descent face a multitude of challenges due to their intersecting identities. As victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and other forms of intolerance, they are also subject to gender-based stereotypes and negative social norms. This chapter explores how international and regional human rights bodies, including the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and special procedures of the Human Rights Council, such as the Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls, the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, and the Special Rapporteurs on extreme poverty, right to health, contemporary forms of racism, and violence against women, have utilised intersectional human rights approaches. By drawing on Black feminist theory, critical race theory, and human rights frameworks, the chapter examines how intersectionality sheds light on the discrimination faced by women of African descent, with a particular focus on the United States. The chapter aims to highlight the value of intersectionality to inform more effective policies and interventions to address the unique challenges faced by women of African descent, in terms of both racial and gender justice.

Summary The present report, submitted pursuant to Commission on Human Rights resolution 1993/2 A and Human Rights Council resolution 5/1, is primarily based on interviews and briefings held with victims, civil society representatives, human rights defenders, and Palestinian officials, among others, in Amman and Cairo in September 2014. The Special Rapporteur made every effort to contact Palestinian victims and witnesses via video and teleconference. In the report, he addresses a number of concerns pertaining to the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and in particular, on their impact on children.

The human rights issues of the Uighur ethnic group have become the international spotlight as a result of the policies implemented by China government which are considered to have violated human rights. For Indonesia, the human rights issue of the Uighur ethnic group is a dilemma in itself that has emerged in foreign policy both at the bilateral level towards China and bilaterally through the UN Human Rights Council mechanism. Indonesia's foreign policy is considered ambiguous because it does not reflect Indonesia's position as a member of the UN Human Rights Council and Islamic solidarity. Therefore, this article attempts to discuss by presenting the question why there is ambiguity in Indonesia's foreign policy in responding to the human rights issue of the Uighur ethnic group? The discussion of this question was analyzed using a constructivist approach through identity and interests with the argument that Indonesia's foreign policy towards human rights issues of the Uighur ethnic group was based on personal and social identities, giving rise to differences in interests that must be achieved. The article was prepared using qualitative methods with secondary data used to support research arguments. This paper finds that the foreign policy presented by Indonesia as an alternative has emerged based on its identity as a developing country with an interest in maintaining and maintaining good relations with China and an identity as a global human rights promoter with an interest in avoiding politicization of the UN Human Rights Council by Western countries.