International Monitoring Bodies

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:05 -0500

International Monitoring Bodies

by Paul Mageean

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In this notebook, we discover how the Committee on the Administration of Justice succeeded in raising the issue of human rights abuses in Northern Ireland at the international level and, by doing so, brought about significant improvements in human rights conditions. This was accomplished through CAJ’s utilisation of the Committee Against Torture–one of the mechanisms available through the United Nations for monitoring governments that have signed international conventions. In order to use these international mechanisms effectively, a number of supporting tactics were necessary, including writing submissions to the Committee, lobbying in Geneva and monitoring the implementation and impact that the reports and recommendations of Committee Against Torture have had on Northern Ireland in terms of actually improving the human rights situation on the ground. International mechanisms can be a powerful and effective tool for human rights organisations to leverage for change, especially when they have encountered significant obstacles and opposition at the local and national level.

There has been a violent political conflict in Northern Ireland since 1969. The conflict involves three sets of protagonists: the Irish Republican Army and other republican groups that want Northern Ireland to unite with the rest of Ireland; loyalist groups that want Northern Ireland to remain within the UK; and the state. From the beginning of the conflict the forces of the state have been involved in human rights abuses. A key aspect of the human rights abuse has involved allegations of ill-treatment of those in custody. This notebook will outline how the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) was able to successfully utilise the United Nations Committee Against Torture to pressure the UK not only to address the allegations of ill-treatment of those in custody but also to establish mechanisms and standards ensuring protection for the accused and accountability of state actors.

The Committee on the Administration of Justice, the foremost human rights organisation operating in Northern Ireland, had long been concerned with the rights of those in detention. Concerns about the use and abuse of emergency law gave rise to our establishment in 1981. We had devised a set of recommendations to guarantee the rights of those arrested by the police and particularly those held in the detention centres. These proposals included suggestions that interviews be recorded electronically, that lawyers be permitted to be present during the interviews, that there be an independent system of monitoring the detention process, that those detained be brought before a judge or released after a shorter period than seven days and that there be independent investigation of complaints of ill-treatment. These proposals were strongly resisted by the government and the police, who maintained that the exceptional powers granted by the emergency legislation were necessary to deal effectively with those suspected of paramilitary activity. Both the government and police denied that any abuse was taking place even though those who alleged ill-treatment and were released without charge by the police often successfully sued for damages. In addition, it was difficult to get media coverage of the issue because at the height of the conflict much of the media was reluctant to give extensive coverage to allegations of this nature.

We needed to devise a response to this problem that would be effective in terms of improving the situation of those arrested under the emergency laws but would also trigger such a significant news story that the media could not avoid covering it. It became increasingly clear that this response could not be generated internally in Northern Ireland. Although we were still a relatively young NGO (having hired our first staff members in 1985), we had begun to think in terms of the boomerang theory. We were therefore increasingly alive to the possibility of exposing what was going on in the detention centres before an international audience to shed light on the situation from outside the country, which would demand accountability and a response from the government. It was clear to us that, on our own, we were not going to achieve our goal of ending the ill-treatment. We were not able to cultivate media interest in the issue–certainly not in Britain, where the key policy-makers were based. It was also the case that many simply disbelieved what we were saying. It is, of course, often the case that in a society in conflict human rights activists are disbelieved and dismissed as being partisan.

This was a phenomenon not exclusive to Northern Ireland, but it did create problems for the credibility of what we were alleging and weakened our chances of creating the necessary momentum to improve the situation. We therefore needed to find a tactic that would address these weaknesses by raising the profile of the issue both internationally and domestically, also lending credibility to what we, as a small NGO in Northern Ireland, were saying. We were fortunate to have a number of academic lawyers familiar with United Nations mechanisms on our executive committee. One of them suggested the use of the Committee Against Torture or CAT (referred to as "the Committee" for the remainder of this notebook). At this stage, we had not accessed any of the international mechanisms at the UN level designed to protect human rights.

The UK signed the Convention Against Torture in 1985 and ratified it in 1988, becoming thereafter subject to the reporting procedures of the Committee Against Torture. Essentially, this meant that the UK had to report periodically to the Committee about the extent to which the Convention was being respected in the UK. The UK must submit each report in written form to the Committee, which then holds a hearing on matters addressed in the report and questions UK representatives. The hearings take place in Geneva. Generally the Committee runs on a three-year cycle, but fortuitously for us, the UK was to be examined by the Committee for the first time in 1991. We consulted with our colleagues in international NGOs to assist us in using this UN mechanism when the UK had to appear before the Committee. We have subsequently been able to utilise such UN mechanisms with increasing success and the Committee Against Torture has been particularly instrumental in pressuring the state to implement actions long-recommended by CAJ.

These examinations by the Committee would have occurred with or without interventions from us. However, the Committee, like other UN human rights mechanisms, tends to rely on NGOs and others to provide it with credible information on which to base its questioning of the country involved. The previous recommendations from the Committee tend to set the parameters for each subsequent examination, so it was important for us to persuade the Committee to pay attention to the issues we wanted highlighted. This was particularly the case in 1991, as it was the first time that the UK had been examined. Increasingly, and certainly in 1998, the Committee would start the session by asking for information on what the state had done to meet the concerns highlighted by the Committee on the previous occasion. The UK has not been examined since 1998, although we anticipate an examination will be forthcoming again in the near future.

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Expanding Access to Justice

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:02 -0500

by Marcos Fuchs

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Until a few years ago, there were no legal firms in Brazil that offered free services to people in need. The Pro-Bono Institute has created a new legal tradition in São Paolo, convincing major law firms to donate their legal services and connecting them with NGOs in need of legal services. The Institute has recruited about 140 lawyers and is offering a variety of free services to all kinds of NGOs, including support for important human rights cases. It has achieved a rapid change in attitude in the legal community and pro bono work has become steadily more popular. This workshop demonstrated how to develop pro bono services in the professional legal community to give NGOs and victims of human rights abuse access to more frequent and better legal services.

The expression pro bono publico is Latin for "for the public interest." The expression is now most commonly used to refer to lawyers or other professionals who offer free services to assist people in need or to promote the public interest. By institutionalizing mechanisms to facilitate such public service, the basic human urge to volunteer time to help those in need can become an integral part of the ethic of an entire profession. The pro bono relationship provides a great benefit to both parties: The clients receive services they might not otherwise afford, while the lawyer receives the satisfaction of using his or her skills for a good cause. As a result of this mutual interest, in some countries special institutions have been created to promote free legal assistance for poor people and charitable nonprofit organizations.

Institutionalized pro bono activities are very strong in places like the United States, Australia and Europe, where most of the top law firms have their own pro bono projects providing assistance to the poor, to immigrants and to NGOs. The institutionalization of pro bono services has a direct benefit for human rights. For one thing, human rights NGOs themselves can benefit from such free services. Secondly, the pro bono movement is responding directly to an often-denied human right: the right to a lawyer. Volunteer lawyers are often interested in providing assistance to victims of abuses. In Brazil some of the most respectable NGOs started their activities during the dictatorship (1964-1989) by assisting victims of the repressive government. Many lawyers were providing free legal support to people detained for political reasons.

Unfortunately, there is huge potential being lost. There is a general openness in the legal profession to offering free services to those who need it most. Yet a great many countries with significant and strong legal establishments have no institutionalized process by which people in need can be linked to volunteer lawyers. Despite the Brazilian experience of legal support to victims of repression, until we created the Instituto Pro Bono in 2001 there was no institution with a mandate and capacity to bring together lawyers offering their services with organizations who might need them. More importantly, there was no built-in ethic or professional expectation that lawyers should offer such services. Unlike in the United States, where it is a basic assumption of the legal profession that a firm will offer a certain percentage of its time pro bono, in Brazil and many other countries this is unheard of.

Voluntary service is a purely personal matter, not related to the firm or to the profession as a whole. The Instituto Pro Bono was created to change this reality: to institutionalize the ethic of pro bono service within the Brazilian legal profession and to create an efficient system for bringing together pro bono lawyers with clients in need. In the long run, we believe that this step will increase access to justice for all Brazilians and assist many worthy NGOs. We want to share this experience with you, as we believe the institutionalization of pro bono services is a step that could have a similarly positive effect in many other countries where it is not yet common practice.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Russian, legal aide

International Monitoring Bodies

International Monitoring Bodies

Expanding Access to Justice