How to Protect Human Rights: UN Commission on Human Rights

Electronic Resource Centre for Human Rights Education:
Polish Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights - How to Protect Human Rights

"How to Protect Human Rights?”

Lesson Plan:

How to Approach the Commission on Human Rights

Jacqueline Kacprzak

Copyright by the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights

Warsaw, 1997

How to Approach the Commission on Human Rights

A. The main issues

The class deals with measures of review over human rights observance that are at the disposal of Human Rights Commission within the UN system of human rights protection.

Analyzed will be the role and powers of Human Rights Commission within the UN system. A part on methodology will train participants in "citizen writing".

B. Aims

to acquaint participants with the Human Rights Commission within the UN system of human rights protection;
to acquaint participants with review procedures at the disposal of Human Rights Commission;
to train participants in the skill of analyzing legal acts;
to train participants in "citizen writing".

The class should develop in participants the following skills:

analyzing source texts;
collectively consulting knowledge acquired from various sources and converting data from analyzed texts into pronouncements;
formulating conclusions based on sources and participant's own appraisal of operation of different institutions.

C. Comments

The subject being narrow, participants will need general knowledge on human rights and basic information on the UN system of human rights protection. Participants should also be acquainted with human rights documents (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).
The class could be continuation of a meeting on "The United Nations Organization and Human Rights" (see lessons plan).
If you have contact with participants before the class, you could ask them to prepare themselves for it. It would be advisable that they obtain information on China (from various sources - the media, books, films, conversation with persons who have visited China etc.) so that they gain at least general knowledge on the country and its people. Any data on human rights observance in China they manage to gather might add to the class.
Estimated time needed: 90 minutes.
Target group: students, participants of courses organized by NGOs etc.
Suggested methods of instruction: group work with sources; work with documents; discussion.

D. Didactic materials

supplement for the instructor: #1 (parts I and II);
supplements for the participants: #1 (part II), # 2 and #3.

Documents may prove helpful (contained in the package):

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Materials:

organizational structure of the institutions dealing with human rights within the UN (the chart entitled UN Human Rights Bodies is attached to the main text in the packet)

E. Lessons

Introduction

1. Introducing the subject, repeat the general information on United Nations Organization,

known to participants from previous classes: adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; adoption of Human Rights Covenants; complaint to Human Rights Committee about violation of rights guaranteed by International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights etc. (use the topical text contained in the package).

Mention the fact that within the UN system, the methods and procedures to review human rights observance are generally laid down in acts of international law such as the Human Rights Covenants or detailed conventions.

In most cases, three measures of international review are specified:

reports submitted by States to the international organ;
complaints of States;
complaints or applications of private persons, groups or organizations.

The class deals with procedures at the disposal of Human Rights Commission.

Main part

2. To explain the position of Human Rights Commission within the UN system, use the

diagram enclosed with the topical text of the package.

(If possible, prepare a copy of the diagram for each participant. Use a projector or enlarge the diagram and put it up on the wall for all participants to see during the discussion of Commission's competencies.)

Discuss briefly the appointment of Human Rights Commission and the tasks with which it has been charged by the Economic and Social Council (legislative tasks: preparation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Human Rights Covenants).

Next, basing on Part I of Supplement #1, discuss the review procedures secured for the Commission under a resolution of the Economic and Social Council.

3. Before you pass on to a detailed discussion of Procedure 1503, deal out to all participants

copies of Part II of Supplement # 1 (to facilitate their understanding of the subject and further work). Ask them to read the text attentively and help them to recapitulate the information on Procedure 1503.

You can ask the following questions:

What is a notice submitted to the Commission?
Who is empowered to submit notices to the Commission?
What should be contained in the notice?
What notices can be admitted for examination?
How is a notice submitted to the Commission processed?

4. Next, divide participants into two groups; deal out Supplement # 2 to Group I and

Supplement #3 to Group II.

Ask the groups to read the texts and to suggest what can be done in the described situations. Inquire about participants' ideas and make the following suggestions:

Group I - that they write a letter to Prime Minister of China on the matter (e.g. a petition

signed by several persons and demanding Panchenlama's release).

Group II - that they write a letter to Polish Prime Minister on the matter (e.g. postulating

for regard in Polish foreign policy to the fact that China violates human rights, or for action on part of Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs which should take up this matter at a session of Human Rights Commission and demand a resolution on China's human rights violations).

5. Having analyzed the situation, the two groups start writing letters. They can use the text of

Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other documents.

Time for completion of the task: 15-20 minutes.

6. Ask representatives of the two Groups to read out their letters. Next, basing on the now

familiar situation in China, the entire class should draw up a notice to Human Rights Commission.

Before you start, stress the fact that a notice concerning the little Panchenlama would not be admissible. Repeat what has already been said: "The basic requirement is that the notice mention repeated types of violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Thus admissibility of the notice is conditioned upon its mentioning a greater number of repeated violations indicating that a specific pattern of State policy in the sphere of human rights has developed." Thus an isolated case does not provide the grounds for submitting a notice. On the other hand, though, a description of such individual case contained in the notice to Human Rights Commission is a good illustration of the human rights violations of which China is accused.
Stress also that the notice should meet the criteria of Procedure 1503 and demand that the procedure be initiated.
Participants draw up the notice together on a large sheet of paper or the blackboard, or use a computer if available. Their work completed, check if the notice contains:

- description of the facts;

- purpose of submission of the notice to Human Rights Commission;

- specification of rights violated, with reference to relevant Articles of the Political

Covenant or Universal Declaration.

NOTE: This is an important element of the exercise: participants should be able to

name the rights whose violation they point out. Basing on enclosed source materials, China can be accused of violation of the following rights:

ban on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Art. 7 of ICCPR, that is International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights);
right to freedom and personal safety (Art. 9 and 11 ICCPR);
right to a fair and public trial (Art. 14 ICCPR);
freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Art. 18 ICCPR).

Recapitulation

7. Concluding the class, recapitulate together with participants the knowledge on Human

Rights Commission and review procedures at its disposal.You could make a list of the paramount issues on a large sheet of paper or the blackboard, e.g.:

Human Rights Commission: an UN organ appointed in 1946 by Economic and Social Council;
The Commission's original task: legislative works on human rights treaties;
Review of human rights observance: Procedures 1235 and 1503;
Procedure 1503 is secret; Procedure 1235 is public.
Review of human rights observance within the procedures: on the grounds of notices received.

Supplement #1

International Review of Human Rights Observance

Review Procedure Based on Notices

The shaping and development of review procedure based on notices is related to evolution of competencies of Human Rights Commission.

The Human Rights Commission was established in 1946 by the Economic and Social Council under Article 68 of the Charter of United Nations. Initially, its powers were limited to human rights promotion; it prepared draft conventions and resolutions pertaining to those rights. With years, it acquired powers also to protect human rights. The introduced procedures of dealing with notices of human rights violations were discussed at the first session of Human Rights Commission.

A notice is information in the nature of complaint, accusing a State of human rights violations.

In 1967, the Economic and Social Council adopted Resolution 1235 (XLII). The resolution is of great importance for the development of review procedure based on notices as it grants to Human Rights Commission explicit powers to perform review. The resolution empowers Human Rights Commission (and its subsidiary agency, the Subcommission for Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minority Rights) to examine notices of "repeated types of human rights violations, such as the apartheid policy pursued by South African Republic and in the territory of West Africa, a territory under direct UN protectorate which is however illegally occupied by South Africa, as well as racial discrimination carried on especially in South Rhodesia."

Further, the resolution provides that Human Rights Commission may undertake in-depth research into situations consisting in repeated types of human rights violations, and report on that subject to the Economic and Social Council. The procedure laid down in Resolution 1235 was the subject of long disputes. After the first experiences of its application it was decided to empower Human Rights Commission and its Subcommission for Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minority Rights to examine all human rights violations that are committed regularly and on a mass scale, thus becoming repeated types of violations.

In 1970, the Economic and Social Council adopted Resolution 1503 (XLVIII) entitled "Procedure of dealing with notices of violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms".

The resolution empowers Subcommission for Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minority Rights to appoint from among its composition a workgroup of five members who meet once a year in closed session. The group analyzes all noticed complete with government responses and decides which of the notices should be submitted to the Subcommission. Having received the workgroup's report, the Subcommission decides which of the notices evidence repeated human rights violations; thus selected notices are submitted to Human Rights Commission for consideration.

Review proceedings may end at the stage of discussion within Human Rights Commission, without any substantial resolution being passed.

However, the Commission may resolve to undertake in-depth research into all or some of the situations specified in the notice. Required for the launching of such research is neither consent of the State accused of human rights violations nor decision of any other UN organ. The research leads to preparation of a report which is submitted by the Commission to the Economic and Social Council.

II.

Resolution 1503 of the Economic and Social Council empowered the Subcommission for Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minority Rights to develop norms regulating the procedure of examining notices. The Subcommission duly passed its own resolution in which it provided for the general framework of review procedure including:

Authors of notices: The following groups of subjects are empowered to submit notices:

a) persons or groups of persons who can be reasonably believed to have fallen victims to

human rights violations;

b) persons or groups of persons having direct and certain knowledge of such violations;

c) international non-governmental organizations having direct and verified knowledge of

human rights violations and acting clearly in good faith according to the principles generally recognized in the sphere of human rights, which are not guided by political motives inconsistent with the Charter of United Nations;

d) individuals or groups whose knowledge of human rights violations is not knowledge at first

hand but whose notices are accompanied by unquestionable evidence of such violations.

Notices based solely on information quoted by the media are not examined.

Anonymous notices are inadmissible.

Subject of notice: The basic requirement is that the notice concern "repeated types of violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms". Thus to be admitted, a notice must necessarily specify a greater number of repeated violations from which a specific pattern of State policy with respect to human rights can be detected.

Requirements concerning contents: A notice must contain a description of the facts and state the rights violated and the object of submission of notice.

Admissibility notices is determined among other things:

- by the requirement of exhaustion of domestic remedies which is present in all treaty systems of review based on individual notices or complaints;

- the Subcommission's resolution requires also that the notice be submitted within reasonable time of the moment of completion of proceedings under domestic law;

- notices are not admitted which contain language abusive to the State against which they are directed.

The discussed review procedure was shaped for many years. The system thus developed by Human Rights Commission is worthy of attention for the following reasons in particular:

1 - as opposed to other possibilities of vindicating rights under international law, review

procedures based on notices grant to broad variety of subjects the powers to submit notices of human rights violations;

2 - the procedure, however, guarantees inviolability of the interests of State: under Procedure

1503, proceedings is confidential and some of its stages require consent of the State concerned; the aim is to settle the dispute amicably instead of "indicting" the State, so to say, on the international forum.

Resolution 1503 did not abolish previous resolutions which provided for review procedures based on notices. Thus it preserved the procedure under Resolution 1235 of the Economic and Social Council, as well as Resolution 8 of Human Rights Commission which provide that the ancillary agency of Human Rights Commission - Subcommission for Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Human Rights - draws up reports containing information on human rights violations from all available sources. The Subcommission may also notify Human Rights Commission of all situations where there is serious and reliable evidence that they should be treated as repeated types of human rights violations.

Supplement # 2

At the moment of its invasion by the People's Liberation Army in 1950, Tibet was an autonomous country which met the conditions of statehood generally recognized by international law: nation, territory, government independent of foreign authorities etc. Thus the resulting occupation which persists till the present day constitutes a violation of international law and of Tibetans' fundamental right to self-determination. The Government of People's Republic of China claims its "property" right to Tibet. Quoted as grounds, however, is not the invasion or taking over of the actual control over Tibet in 1959. People's Republic of China attempts to justify its claims to Tibet with historical relationships of Mongolian and Manchurian emperors with Tibetan lamas.

On 10 March 1959 in Lhasa, Tibetans rose against China invaders. Before, for nearly ten years from the day of Chinese invasion of the "Land of Snows", the Government of Tibet headed by the Dalai Lama tried to negotiate with the Chinese to secure existence and survival to Tibetan people. The attempts proved futile.

When it was clear that talks and negotiations were no longer possible, Dalai Lama managed to leave Lhasa and make his way to India. The Lhasa rising was suppressed; a lot of blood was shed. What started was, to quote Dalai Lama - 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner - "the worst period in over two thousand years of our history. The worst indeed. There is danger that Tibetan nation and its cultural heritage might be wiped off from the face of the earth... Our present situation is most serious: it is the question of life or death. If death triumphs, nothing will remain".

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The fates of Gendin Choki Nima, aged 8, the world's youngest political prisoner, is a direct consequence of the policy of Peking Government.

Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation and ages-long tradition tells Tibetans to look for tulku, new incarnations of their supreme spiritual teachers. Children believed to be such incarnations receive severe and most intense training, later on to continue the work of their predecessors as priests, scholars, or masters of meditation. Having suppressed the rising in 1959, Chinese authorities banned such practices as a "noxious relic of feudalism". But twenty years later the Government of People's Republic of China announced that they would permit Tibetans to look for incarnations of deceased lamas. Chinese Communists even organized a special school for small tulku in Peking.

But true mockery only started after the death of Xth Panchenlama in 1989. (Panchenlama, Number Two in Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, stayed in Tibet after the fall of the 1959 rising. The supreme political and spiritual leader of Tibetans - Dalai Lama - formed an émigré government of Tibet in India.)

When Dalai Lama - who is traditionally responsible for the search for a new incarnation of Panchenlama - approached the Government of People's Republic of China for permission for the lamas to carry out traditional ceremonies and searches, Prime Minister Li Peng stated he would not allow "external factors to interfere with the process of selection" of the next Panchenlama, and announced his own plan of finding the "genuine tulku". The process of selection includes interpretation of magic signs, consultations with oracles, search for visions in the waters of holy lakes, putting selected candidates to various tests. Participation in that process of the authorities, atheistic by definition, was unacceptable. The Government, however, formed a "commission" to select the new lama, and continued to ignore letters from Dalai Lama who sought - in vain as it was soon to turn out - a solution acceptable to both parties.

On 14 May 1995, after a detailed "examination" of over thirty candidates, consultation with four oracles, and traditional rites, Dalai Lama formally recognized as XIth Panchenlama Gendin Choki Nima, then aged 6, born on 25 April 1989 in Ngachu in Tibet.

Several days later the boy and his parents vanished from their home village. Late in November, Chinese Government appointed another six-year-old Panchenlama. Spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Shen Guofang categorically denied Peking's involvement in the disappearance of Gendin and his parents. Later on, he reluctantly admitted that the boy was in State custody. The other candidate appointed, Shen Guofang said he thought the boy was "probably in his home village", and the authorities were "not in the least interested in his fate".

Appeals for immediate release of little Panchenlama - the world's youngest political prisoner - were made by President Clinton's administration, the US Congress, European Parliament, parliamentarians from France, Czechia, Poland etc. Last your, Peking was forced to admit in the UN forum that Gendin was "in their custody". So far, however, no foreigner has been granted permission to visit little Panchenlama's home village or otherwise to contact the boy. This means his confinement is incommunicado. Tibetans are particularly apprehensive for his safety. When the former Panchenlama was on the verge of death, having been put to inhuman torture, Government of People's Republic of China arranged for the spread of rumors about his "escape" from Qingchen prison.

Tibetans and human rights organizations fear a similar "escape" of his successor who turned 8 in April 1997.

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Based on: TIBET. Witnesses. Facts speak for themselves, Polish Society of the Friends of Tibet, 1993.

Supplement #3

The Chinese rule in Tibet is more savage than any other communist rule.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

At the moment of its invasion by People's Liberation Army in 1950, Tibet was an autonomous State meeting the conditions of statehood generally recognized by international law: nation, territory, Government independent of foreign authorities etc. Thus the resulting occupation which persists till the present day constitutes a violation of international law and of Tibetans' fundamental right to self-determination. The Government of People's Republic of China claims its "property" right to Tibet. Quoted as grounds, however, is not the invasion or taking over of the actual control over Tibet in 1959. People's Republic of China attempts to justify its claims to Tibet with historical relationships of Mongolian and Manchurian emperors with Tibetan lamas.

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The Chinese occupation cost the lives of over 1,200,000 of the 6 million Tibetans, that is one-fifth of the nation. Nearly all of the 6,254 Tibetan monasteries - once centers of Tibetan religion, culture, science, medicine and art - feel into ruin. As a result of Chinese displacement policy, Tibetans are today a minority in their own country. If nothing changes for the better, they will be but a tourist attraction tomorrow.

Tibetans are thrust into prisons for all attempts at opposing communist authorities. They are confined to lagers and forced labor camps for wearing the traditional folk dress, possession of the national banner or a translation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Judging from reports of international human rights organizations, torture is the only means of investigation known to Chinese investigating officers. Nearly all ex-prisoners state they were beaten, kicked, tortured with electric clubs pushed by guards into the prisoner's mouth and other orifices of the body, and exquisite methods of manacling which twist a person's joints and often make him a cripple for the rest of his life.

In 1995, at least four Tibetan political prisoners were tortured to death; two of them were teenage nuns. According to eye witness accounts, they had been beaten, kicked, shocked with electric clubs, and raped. Practically every day news agencies and independent international organizations report on shocking acts of ill-treatment, arbitrary detentions, and long prison terms imposed without a trial in administrative proceedings.

Starting from 1990, there has been a rapid avalanche-like growth in the number of death sentences and executions. Human Rights Watch/Asia proved that prisoners executed in People's Republic of China constitute the main source of organs for transplantation which are both used in China and exported to foreign hospitals. Tibetan women are sterilized compulsorily; those who get pregnant are forced to undergo an abortion even in the eighth month. Imprisonment of the six-year-old Gendin Choki Nima and "discovery" of another "genuine incarnation" of Panchenlama by communist authorities best illustrate the Peking regime's interpretation of religious freedom in Tibet.

Tibetans are discriminated in all spheres of social life: from education to health care to work and housing conditions. Tibet has become the nuclear refuse dump of the Chinese empire. Cleared have been Tibetan forests - as important for ecological balance on Earth as the Amazon rainforest. One in every ten Tibetans who have managed to survive till today spent over ten years in a Chinese prison or labor camp.

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Based on: TIBET. Witnesses. Facts speak for themselves, Polish Society of the Friends of Tibet, 1993.

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