Heather Col­lis­ter

?The bi­en­ni­al Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing is a ma­jor tar­get for CHRI's ad­vo­ca­cy. CHRI will dis­trib­ute hard copies of its re­port dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings of the hu­man rights as­sem­bly or­gan­ised by the Com­mon­wealth Foun­da­tion and Com­mon­wealth Hu­man Rights Ini­tia­tive, in Ho­tel Cas­ca­dia, 67 Ari­api­ta Road, St Ann's, Port-of-Spain, 23-24 No­vem­ber. The re­port, ti­tled "Si­lenc­ing the De­fend­ers: Hu­man Rights De­fend­ers in the Com­mon­wealth," looks in­to an is­sue of hu­man rights con­cern in the Com­mon­wealth, which in­cludes rec­om­men­da­tions to fur­ther pro­tect and pro­mote hu­man rights. Fol­low­ing on from pre­vi­ous re­ports which had high­light­ed trends in the Com­mon­wealth to de­val­ue civ­il lib­er­ties. While en­hanc­ing state and po­lice pow­er, this year's re­port ex­am­ined the par­tic­u­lar im­pact on hu­man rights de­fend­ers whose cru­cial role in the pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of hu­man rights is un­der­mined by re­stric­tions im­posed on the space they have to car­ry out in their ac­tiv­i­ties.

Any­one who would like a copy of the re­port can con­tact Heather Col­lis­ter [ HY­PER­LINK "mail­to:heather@hu­man­rightsini­tia­tive.org" heather@hu­man­rightsini­tia­tive.org or Iniyan Ilan­go] [iniyan@hu­man­rightsini­tia­tive.org] who will ad­dress the hu­man rights as­sem­bly. In the sev­enth decade af­ter the adop­tion of the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights, Com­mon­wealth gov­ern­ments con­tin­ue to re­sist ful­fill­ing their hu­man rights oblig­a­tions. There is an on­go­ing need for peo­ple who are ready and will­ing to stand up and de­fend hu­man rights. On­ly re­cent­ly have the le­git­i­ma­cy and val­ue of ac­tions done in de­fence of hu­man rights been recog­nised at in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al lev­els. The Unit­ed Na­tions De­c­la­ra­tion on the Right and Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of In­di­vid­u­als, Groups and Or­gans of So­ci­ety to Pro­mote and Pro­tect Uni­ver­sal­ly Recog­nised Hu­man Rights and Fun­da­men­tal Free­doms, com­mon­ly known as the De­c­la­ra­tion on Hu­man Rights De­fend­ers (the De­c­la­ra­tion), was unan­i­mous­ly adopt­ed by the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in 1998.�

The De­c­la­ra­tion was born out of two fun­da­men­tal con­sid­er­a­tions: one, that pro­mot­ing hu­man rights is valu­able and is the pre­rog­a­tive of every­one, and two, that these ac­tiv­i­ties make the ac­tor vul­ner­a­ble to reprisal. Al­though it is a de­c­la­ra­tion rather than a treaty, and hence not legal­ly bind­ing, the una­nim­i­ty with which it was adopt­ed gives it a unique strength, and places states un­der a strong moral and po­lit­i­cal oblig­a­tion to abide by it. The De­c­la­ra­tion does not pro­vide hu­man rights de­fend­ers with new or spe­cial rights, but brings to­geth­er pre­vi­ous­ly agreed le­gal oblig­a­tions found else­where in in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights law. The non-bind­ing na­ture of the De­c­la­ra­tion does not, there­fore, mean that coun­tries are not legal­ly ob­lig­at­ed to en­sure that the rights in it are im­ple­ment­ed.

That the work of hu­man rights de­fend­ers is not pop­u­lar in many Com­mon­wealth ju­ris­dic­tions is clear from the fre­quen­cy with which they are tar­get­ed.

Whether they are ac­tive in a con­flict sit­u­a­tion or a sta­ble democ­ra­cy, any­thing that sug­gests crit­i­cism of gov­ern­ment can at­tract dire con­se­quences. Hu­man rights de­fend­ers are like­ly to suf­fer a range of abus­es from hav­ing their ac­tiv­i­ties un­rea­son­ably re­strict­ed and their or­gan­i­sa­tions un­fair­ly scru­ti­nised, to be­ing spied on or de­famed, de­nied ac­cess to fund­ing, or be­ing sub­ject to ar­bi­trary ar­rest, phys­i­cal vi­o­lence and death–all im­posed with the in­ten­tion of de­ter­ring them from pur­su­ing their valu­able work. Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is a le­git­i­mate con­cern of gov­ern­ments.

How­ev­er, the pres­ence of pro­tract­ed armed con­flicts with­in state bor­ders has prompt­ed the pass­ing of spe­cial laws and an in­crease in po­lice pow­ers which, in some cas­es, are not well-reg­u­lat­ed, en­abling them to be turned to ends oth­er than those for which they were in­tend­ed. There is al­so a ten­den­cy for gov­ern­ments to re­tain these statutes and con­tin­ue to use them, even af­ter the ten­sions that prompt­ed their adop­tion have end­ed. How­ev­er, the state has a du­ty to pro­tect. Ar­ti­cle 12 (2) and (3) of the De­c­la­ra­tion un­der­lines that the state has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that every­one is pro­tect­ed from vi­o­lence in the ex­er­cise of their right to par­tic­i­pate in peace­ful ac­tiv­i­ties against hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions.

This means that the state and its in­sti­tu­tions–par­tic­u­lar­ly the jus­tice sys­tem and the po­lice–must be able to pro­vide ef­fec­tive safe­guards for both the per­son and the work of those un­der threat, wher­ev­er these threats may come from. When non-state and pri­vate ac­tors at­tack hu­man rights de­fend­ers, the state is bound to bring them to jus­tice through the prop­er chan­nels. In recog­ni­tion of the val­ue and im­por­tance of the work of hu­man rights de­fend­ers in pro­tect­ing hu­man rights and in im­ple­ment­ing the fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights prin­ci­ples of the Com­mon­wealth, and not­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties that they face in car­ry­ing out that agen­da, CHRI is call­ing on CHOGM as a mat­ter of ur­gency to man­date the de­vel­op­ment of a Com­mon­wealth-wide pol­i­cy on hu­man rights de­fend­ers.