The Great Debate UK
Cluster munitions treaty – a milestone, but a long way to go
Bonnie Docherty is a senior researcher in the Arms Division at Human Rights Watch. She is also a lecturer and clinical instructor in the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School. The opinions expressed are her own.
On August 1, the world moved a step closer to eliminating cluster munitions, large weapons that carry dozens or hundreds of smaller submunitions and are notorious for killing and maiming civilians, both during attacks and long afterward.
On that day, the Convention on Cluster Munitions “entered into force,” becoming binding international law on the countries that have joined it. The treaty seeks to eradicate these weapons, which have plagued the world for half a century.
It is a milestone to celebrate. But it is also a moment to reflect on the road ahead. To help the convention achieve its full potential, the international community needs to work toward three goals: complete universalization—that is, getting all countries to join, strong interpretation, and effective implementation.
Intelligence cooperation: time to ask the hard questions
- Judith Sunderland, senior Western Europe researcher for Human Rights Watch, has worked extensively on counterterrorism issues. The opinions expressed are her own. -
Torture is prohibited under international law, at anytime and anywhere. No exceptions are allowed. Yet the UK, France and Germany are engaged in ongoing counterterrorism cooperation with foreign intelligence services in countries that routinely use torture.
These European governments use foreign torture information for intelligence and policing purposes. And the rules in each country meant to keep torture evidence out of the courts – including foreign torture evidence – don’t work because the burden falls on defendants to prove the information was obtained under torture, a nearly impossible task.
In Human Rights Watch’s new report, No Questions Asked: Intelligence Cooperation with Countries that Torture, we argue that uncritical use of foreign torture information violates the duty of all countries under international law to prevent and eradicate torture worldwide.
French, German and UK intelligence services say they cannot always know the sources and methods used to obtain information abroad.
But intelligence officers should be under clear instructions to make the necessary inquiries – ask the hard questions – to ensure that European services are not using foreign torture information. To do otherwise implicitly validates the use of unlawful methods.
The worst place to return a child?
-Simone Troller is children’s rights researcher with Human Rights Watch and specialises in unaccompanied migrant children in Europe. The opinions expressed are her own.-
It should hardly come as a surprise to anyone reading the news that Europe’s biggest group of asylum seekers are Afghans, including thousands of children who arrive alone.
But what should surprise readers is that a growing number of European countries, including the UK, plan to deport these vulnerable children. The British government claims that returning them will prevent others from making the hazardous journey. It wants to set up a reception centre for them in Kabul.
But this approach raises serious concerns.
Child rights organizations actively discourage institutionalizing children and most European countries, including the UK, have moved away from this form of child protection.
And the claim that returning children will lead to fewer arrivals is based on an assumption that these children had a choice about leaving.
Women, asylum and the UK Border Agency
Gauri van Gulik is a Women’s Rights Advocate and Researcher for Human Rights Watch and author of the report “Fast-Tracked Unfairness: Detention and Denial of Women Asylum Seekers in the UK. The opinions expressed are her own. Reuters will host a “follow-the-sun” live blog on Monday, March 8, 2010, International Women’s Day. Please tune in.–
Last week, the Home Office Minister Meg Hillier said on the BBC’s Woman’s Hour programme that the UK Border Agency ensures that very complex cases brought by women asylum seekers do not go through the UK’s so-called “detained fast-track” asylum process, a route designed for straightforward asylum claims that can be decided quickly.
The experience of Laura from Sierra Leone suggests otherwise. According to her asylum claim, Laura witnessed her father’s beheading, was raped several times, was imprisoned, was forced to have an abortion by having her stomach cut open, and was trafficked into the UK. Cases are rarely more complicated than Laura’s. Yet she was still sent into the “detained fast-track” system designed for straightforward claims.
Human Rights Watch’s new report “Fast-Tracked Unfairness: Detention and Denial of Women Asylum Seekers in the UK”, looks at how women end up being locked up in Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre in the “detained fast-track” system, despite complex claims, and what they go through once they are there. We did not assess the validity of claims but simply looked at whether these women are getting a full and fair examination of their asylum claim – which is everyone’s right under international law.
The conclusion of the research is that women with complex asylum claims are regularly put into a system designed for straightforward ones. The claims involve female genital mutilation, trafficking, rape and domestic violence.
They are complicated for two reasons. Firstly, the majority of women claim asylum based on violence inflicted on them by their husbands, relatives or other non-state people. That means that they also have to prove in their asylum claim that their home country does not offer them protection from that violence. These claims are legally complex and require expert evidence.
Secondly, these types of claims require sensitivity, time to build a basic level of trust, and knowledge of women’s rights and how they react to trauma. That’s why the fast-track rules already make an exception for torture and trafficking claims. The same exception should apply to claims based on sexual and gender-based violence.
“That means that they also have to prove in their asylum claim that their home country does not offer them protection from that violence. These claims are legally complex and require expert evidence”
But surely only in the first such case for each country? Once that has been established, then each subsequent case is indeed simple: did the claimed violence take place or did it not?
Time to break the silence on injustices against women
- Giselle Portenier is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who focuses on human rights abuses around the world and a member of the Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival committee. The opinions expressed are her own. Reuters will host a “follow-the-sun” live blog on Monday, March 8, 2010, International Women’s Day. Please tune in.-
Soon it will be that famous Ladies’ Day again, International Women’s Day, when the Western press packs their pages with stories—and it’s already started– either celebrating all we have achieved, or lamenting all that still eludes us—equal pay for work of equal value, glass ceilings, balancing work and family life, domestic violence, and so on.
And while these stories are worthwhile, as we head into the hundredth year celebrating International Women’s Day, the time has come to slow down this navel-gazing, change this narrow focus, and come to the aid of millions of women worldwide.
The time has come to break the silence, in a big, real, systematic and very public way, on all the human rights abuses endured by girls and women in the developing world in the name of culture and religion.
It’s tough to get attention for these issues, and they have been tremendously under-reported; I know, because I tried for five years before I finally succeeded in getting a documentary titled “Murder in Purdah” commissioned about honor killings in Pakistan.
A film about the murder of baby girls and the abortion of the female fetus in India titled “Let Her Die” was marginally easier. Both these documentaries had tremendous impact—each resulted in changes in the law.
In Pakistan, the first law against honor killings was introduced; in India, the government banned sex determination tests.
I really admire your effort to bring light to human right violations from around the globe. I would however find it more provokative and admirable if you were to highlight human right violations that are occuring in our own backyard…like hundreds and perhaps even thousands of missing or murdered aboriginal women across Canada…I think that we need to clean our own mess up before we start pointing fingers at others…Don’t get me wrong, the example of human right violations that you highlighted are atrocious however we have our own changes to make. I believe that we need to take a leadership approach on this matter and right some wrongs within our own country so that others may follow! We need to stand up for the rights of our mothers and aunts and sisters and daughters within our own soil…We need to bring these issues to the forefront so that they can be addressed by the Canadian Government!
Where schooling is sabotaged
- Kennji Kizuka was a consultant to the children’s rights division of Human Rights Watch and conducted research for their new report, Sabotaged Schooling: Naxalite Attacks and Police Occupation of Schools in India’s Bihar and Jharkhand States. The opinions expressed are his own. -
Late in the evening of November 29, 2008, a group of guerrilla fighters entered the remote village of Dwarika in the Indian state of Jharkhand and detonated improvised bombs inside the village’s only school. Doors blew apart, desks and chairs splintered, and portions of the classroom walls crumbled. No longer suitable or safe for learning, the school closed.
When I visited Dwarika in June of this year, local residents attributed the attack to the “Naxalites”—the term used in India to refer to Maoist-oriented insurgent groups who seek to overthrow the Indian state and establish a new social order to protect oppressed and marginalized people. They wage their armed struggle by attacking police, assassinating politicians, extorting businesses, and targeting government infrastructure – trains, roads, and schools.
Although I visited Dwarika more than six months after the attack, the village had yet to receive government support to rebuild the school that had served 250 children. Families with the means had sent their children outside the village to study. But residents told us that many parents were too poor to enroll their children elsewhere. For these already disadvantaged students, the chance to learn lay in ruins, along with the school.
Two weeks ago, exactly one year after the Dwarika bombing, Naxalite forces destroyed another school in Jharkhand, in the village of Bhavwar. In just the last month Naxalites have attacked at least 16 schools there and in the neighboring state of Bihar. One would expect these bombings to draw international attention, but outside of India few people have heard of the Naxalites. Even within the country, there is little recognition–including among government officials–of the extent to which the conflict disrupts the education of tens of thousands of students.
But it is not just the Naxalites who are sabotaging education. Government security forces are too.
As I was leaving Dwarika, a contingent from the Central Reserve Police Force was setting up camp in the wrecked buildings and grounds of the school. In areas of Bihar and Jharkhand affected by Naxalite violence, government security forces have taken over dozens of primary, middle, and high schools to conduct counter-insurgency operations.
Italy forces migrants back to Libyan abuse
- Bill Frelick is Human Rights Watch‘s refugee policy director and the author of “Pushed Back, Pushed Around: Italy’s Forced Return of Boat Migrants and Asylum Seekers, Libya’s Mistreatment of MIgrants and Asylum Seekers“. The opinions expressed are his own. -
On May 6, for the first time since World War II, a European state ordered its coast guard and naval vessels to intercept and forcibly return boat migrants on the high seas without screening to determine whether any passengers needed protection or were particularly vulnerable. That state was Italy; the receiving state was Libya. The Italians left the exhausted passengers on a dock in Tripoli, where the Libyan authorities immediately detained them.
Since then, Italian patrol boats have continued to force the boat migrants, mostly Africans, back to Libya. Some of the operations are coordinated by Frontex, the European Union’s external borders migration control agency.
The policy is an open breach of Italy’s legal obligation not to commit refoulement—the forced return of people to places where their lives or freedom would be threatened or where they would face a risk of torture or inhuman and degrading treatment.
Today, Human Rights Watch issues a report on Libya’s mistreatment of migrants and asylum seekers. It is based on 91 in-depth, private interviews with migrants who went through Libya to Italy or Malta, where they could speak to us without fear of retribution.
A 32-year-old Nigerian I interviewed in Sicily told me how the Libyan authorities treated him after they stopped his boat on October 20, 2008:
“We were in a wooden boat and Libyans in a [motorized inflatable] Zodiac started shooting at us. They told us to return to shore. They kept shooting until they hit our engine. One person was shot and killed. I don’t know the men who did the shooting, but they were civilians, not in uniforms. Then a Libyan navy boat came and got us and started beating us. They collected our money and cell phones. I think the zodiac boat was working with the Libyan navy. The Libyan navy took us back in their big ship and they sent us to Bin Gashir deportation camp. When we arrived there they immediately started beating me and the others. They beat some of the boys until they could not walk.”
Superb. Hopefully the British Government can take note of this and start showing some backbone themselves, rather than advertising to the rest of the world that we will have any freeloader that wishes to enter this country. The Australians set the standard a couple of years ago when they would not let a ship dock on their land.
Squandered oil wealth, an African tragedy
-Arvind Ganesan is the Director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. The opinions expressed are his own.-
Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country of about half a million people on the west coast of Africa, but is the fourth-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.
Most of the investment in the country’s multi-billion dollar oil industry comes from the United States. ExxonMobil, Hess and Marathon are all there. Right now, the U.S. imports up to 100,000 barrels of oil a day from Equatorial Guinea, or about a quarter of the country’s oil production.
Oil money gives the country the means to be a model for development and human rights. The economy is nearly 130 times as big as it was when oil was discovered in 1995. But as a report released by Human Rights Watch today details, the government has squandered or stolen much of the money at the expense of its people.
It is a sad contrast, since the country has a per capita income comparable to Spain’s or Italy’s and development indicators more like Afghanistan’s. For just one sad example, infant and child mortality actually has increased — from an already-dismal 103 deaths per thousand in 1990 to 124 per thousand in 2007. Similarly, under-5 mortality rates increased from 170 per thousand in 1990 to 206 per thousand in 2007.
The president and his family are doing just fine, though. They lead lavish lifestyles while most people live in crushing poverty.
A series of corruption scandals involving government officials and their families will give you some idea of how bad it is.
Unfortunately, this “curse of oil” now threatens to affect countries rich in other resources as well: uranium in Niger and Namibia, for example. It’s going to be quite a challenge for African oil-producers and other energy suppliers to hold governments accountable. Some are saying now that the constitutional crisis in Niger and President Tandja’s desire to extend his mandate are directly related to elites wanting control over uranium supplies. I hope systems for sharing wealth equitably are created, otherwise we may see more resource conflict, more corruption, and more political tension in many African countries.
Make no exceptions to ban on cluster munitions
- Bonnie Docherty, a researcher in the Arms Division at Human Rights Watch, has conducted investigative field missions on cluster munition use in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, and Georgia and was actively involved in the negotiations for the new Convention on Convention Munitions. The opinions expressed are her own. -
Six months after the new treaty banning cluster munitions opened for signature, half the world has formally expressed its support. So far, the Convention on Cluster Munitions has an impressive 98 signatories, 10 of which have ratified. Those figures are growing, and Albania, Niger, and Spain ratified this month. The convention will enter into force six months after the thirtieth state ratifies. Many observers predict that it will actually enter into force in 2010, a remarkably short turnaround for international law.
The groundbreaking convention absolutely bans the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions. These large weapons carry dozens or hundreds of smaller submunitions and are notorious for causing horrible civilian deaths or injuries both during attacks and afterward.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions also requires countries that are party to destroy their stockpiles within eight years, clear their territory of unexploded submunitions within 10 years, and provide assistance to cluster munition victims. The convention is already having a positive effect at the national level. In March, Spain became the first among those that have signed to finish destroying its stockpiles – and Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom have started the process.
Countries that have signed the convention are convening in Berlin this week for the first time since the December 2008 signing ceremony in Oslo. Although the subject of the meeting is stockpile destruction, delegates are certain to gather in the hallways to discuss some outstanding matters of how to interpret the treaty.
The topic most debated behind the scenes will be what is called interoperability – that is, how the ban on cluster munitions applies during military operations with states that are not party to the treaty. Human Rights Watch has just released a legal analysis of the issue, and many participating countries are considering how to address it in their implementation legislation.
Despite the international support for a strong treaty, certain states are proposing a weak interpretation that threatens to undermine the purpose of the convention: to eliminate cluster munitions and their humanitarian harm.
Here in Aotearoa New Zealand we’re campaigning for our government to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It has been six months since the treaty was opened for signature and we really hope that New Zealand will be one of the first 30 states that ratifies and helps the treaty take effect.
We’re asking New Zealand to take a strong stance on the “interoperability” provisions of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, especially to recognise that the prohibition on assist is a core obligation of the Convention.
This is a real-life concern as New Zealand is currently considering whether to send another deployment of troops to Afghanistan. The United States has not banned cluster bombs and last used the weapon in Afghanistan in 2003. So we want our government to affirm that it will abide by the prohibition on assist and not in any way help the US or others to use cluster bombs in joint military operations.
