A humanitarian appeal launched on Tuesday has been met with “record generosity”, the UN Chief said, which will allow for a scale-up in the delivery of vital assistance.
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Pending Execution Highlights Singapore’s Failures on Disability Rights
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Activists demonstrate against the impending execution of Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, sentenced to death for trafficking heroin into Singapore, outside the Singaporean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, November 23, 2021.
© 2021 AP Photo/Vincent Thian
When Singapore ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2013, it committed to protect the rights of the more than quarter-million people with disabilities in the city-state. However, the case of Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, sentenced to death for a nonviolent drug offense, has highlighted Singapore’s failure to make those rights a legal reality.
Lawyers for Nagaenthran, a 33-year-old Malaysian who has an IQ of 69 and attention hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), have sought to halt his execution, originally scheduled for November 10, 2021, arguing that executing a man with an intellectual disability would violate Singapore’s obligations under the CRPD, which requires equal access to justice, including disability-specific procedural accommodations. Nagaenthran was not provided required support and accommodation for his disabilities to facilitate his effective participation in his trial, nor procedural accommodations to ensure a fair trial and due process. The lawyers also requested an independent assessment of his mental health.
During a hearing on March 1, Singapore’s highest court made clear that Singapore law does not prohibit the execution of people with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities. Executing someone with an intellectual or psychosocial disability is inconsistent with international law and practice. “International law considers the imposition and enforcement of the death penalty on persons with mental disabilities a violation of the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment,” the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment wrote in 2014.
States parties to the CRPD are obligated to “adopt all legislative, administrative and other measures for the implementation of the rights” set forth in the convention and to “ensure that public authorities and institutions act in conformity” with it. But Singapore has not done so.
Instead, the country retains a mandatory death penalty for many offenses, including nonviolent drug offenses. While Singapore amended the Misuse of Dangerous Drugs Act in 2012 to allow for a life sentence rather than the death penalty if the court finds the defendant was merely acting as a courier and experienced “abnormality of mind” that “substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts and omissions in relation to the offense,” such relief is discretionary and is not available to those charged with other offenses carrying the mandatory death penalty.
Human rights conventions do little to benefit people in a country such as Singapore, where treaty obligations must be adopted into domestic law, if the government doesn’t take steps to do so. Singapore should amend its laws to ensure that no one is subjected to the death penalty, certainly not people with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities. The government should ensure all rights it has committed to protect are, in fact, upheld in domestic law.
Ukraine: Countries Request ICC War Crimes Inquiry
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Permanent premises of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands. © 2018 Marina Riera/Human Rights Watch
Thirty-eight governments have taken a significant step toward ensuring documentation of potential war crimes by asking the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor to open an investigation in Ukraine, Human Rights Watch said today. On February 28, 2022, the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, signaled his intention to seek to open a formal inquiry.
On March 2, 2022, a group of ICC member countries referred the situation in Ukraine to the court’s prosecutor for investigation. Lithuania made a separate referral to the ICC prosecutor’s office on February 28. The complete list of countries is below.
“The request for an ICC investigation reflects the growing alarm among countries about the escalating atrocities and human rights crisis that has gripped Ukraine,” said Balkees Jarrah, interim international justice director at Human Rights Watch. “These governments are making clear that serious crimes will not be tolerated and that the court has an essential role to play in ensuring justice.”
Human Rights Watch and others have documented serious violations of the laws of war by Russian forces in Ukraine, including the use of cluster munitions that hit a hospital and a preschool. According to the United Nations, civilian casualties from the first days of the conflict are at 536, including 136 deaths.
The referral follows an announcement by the ICC prosecutor that he would seek to open a formal Ukraine investigation that would include scrutiny of any alleged serious crimes in the current conflict. With a referral to the court by ICC member countries, the prosecutor’s office can open an investigation without first seeking approval of a panel of the court’s judges. After receipt of the referral, Khan announced that his office would immediately proceed with a Ukraine inquiry.
Ukraine is not a member of the ICC, but it accepted the court’s jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed on its territory since November 2013, and in doing so, the obligation to cooperate with the court. In December 2020, the then-ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, concluded her preliminary examination of the situation and announced that the criteria under the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, had been met to open an investigation. But the prosecutor’s office did not subsequently seek judicial approval to open an investigation as required by the court’s procedure, citing “operational challenges,” including limited resources and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a recent announcement, Khan confirmed that he believed there was a basis to open an investigation, with respect to alleged crimes committed in Crimea and eastern Ukraine as well as any new alleged crimes in the current conflict. On March 2, the ICC presidency assigned the Ukraine situation to a panel of judges following a memorandum from the prosecutor indicating his intention to seek authorization to open a formal investigation. After receiving the referral, Khan notified the court’s Presidency of his plans to immediately proceed with an investigation.
Because Russia is not a member of the ICC, its authorities are not bound to cooperate with the court. However, under the court’s rules governing its jurisdiction, the ICC prosecutor has a mandate to impartially investigate allegations of crimes committed in Ukraine by all parties to the conflict, regardless of the nationality of the person allegedly responsible. Bensouda’s decision to examine whether to investigate in Ukraine precipitated Russia’s “un-signing” of the court’s treaty in 2016, a move with mostly symbolic effect.
The ICC’s jurisdiction in Ukraine covers genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Liability for these crimes is not limited to those who carry out the acts, but also those who order, assist, or are otherwise complicit in the crimes. That includes liability on the basis of command responsibility in which military and civilian officials, up to the top of the chain of command, can be held criminally responsible for crimes committed by their subordinates; when they knew or should have known that such crimes were being committed, but failed to take reasonable measures to stop them.
Given that neither Ukraine nor Russia are members of the ICC, the court does not have jurisdiction over the crime of aggression in this situation.
The ICC’s mandate relates to cases against individual alleged perpetrators while the International Court of Justice (ICJ) considers disputes between states. On February 26, Ukraine filed an application at the ICJ to initiate proceedings against Russia under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention). The case is “state-to-state” litigation governed by legal provisions in the UN Charter, the ICJ Statute, and the Genocide Convention. The ICJ will hold public hearings in the case between March 7 and 8 on Ukraine’s request for provisional measures.
With the Ukraine investigation, the number of open country situations under investigation before the court has risen to 17 – including an investigation into crimes committed during the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia. Other ongoing investigations relate to serious international crimes committed around the world including in Bangladesh/Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Palestine.
ICC member countries should step up to ensure the court has sufficient means and political backing to do its vital work on behalf of victims of grave abuses around the world, including in the face of any obstruction. An effective ICC backed by the strong support of the international community is needed more than ever to send the message that impunity for any serious crimes will not be tolerated, Human Rights Watch said.
The ICC prosecutor tasked his office to explore all opportunities to preserve evidence for a Ukraine investigation. Separately, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is set to vote this week during an urgent debate on the situation in Ukraine on a draft resolution that would create a commission of inquiry to document serious human rights violations, preserve evidence, and identify alleged those responsible for serious crimes.
Documentation efforts will be vital to international and domestic accountability processes, including by national judicial officials under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Governments committed to justice in Ukraine should support and bolster these initiatives, Human Rights Watch said.
“The ICC prosecutor’s decision to open an investigation sends a message to current and would-be rights abusers, no matter how powerful, that justice may one day catch up with them,” Jarrah said. “Broad support for the court’s work will be critical to the investigation’s success and help ensure that victims in Ukraine have a path to justice that they so desperately need.”
Countries that requested the investigation are:
Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Global Plastics Treaty: A Historic Opportunity to Protect Human Rights
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UN Environment Assembly President Espen Barth Eide walks past a heap of plastic bottle waste during a field trip to Dandora Dumping site in Nairobi, Kenya ahead of the Fifth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) on February 26, 2022.
© 2022 James Wakibia / SOPA Images/Sipa via AP Images
Today, parties to the United Nations Environment Assembly agreed to establish a committee to draft a treaty addressing the global plastics crisis. This is a historic commitment by countries to work together to finally tackle the environmental and human costs of plastics.
While often framed as a strictly environmental pollution issue, plastics have significant impacts on human rights throughout their lifecycle. Fossil fuels are a major component of plastics, and the oil and gas used to produce plastics emit large quantities of greenhouse gases, which are contributing to the climate crisis. The UN Food and Agricultural Association warns that microplastics, or plastic particles smaller than five millimeters, leach into the environment when plastic breaks down and pollute agricultural soils, threatening communities’ food security, drinking water and health.
Plastic waste is also either burned or accumulates in landfills, dumps, or the surrounding environment, while only 9 percent of plastic ever produced has been recycled. People who live near dumping and burning sites face health risks from toxic chemicals as plastics degrade or are burned. Exposure to toxins in plastics can lead to long-term and lifelong health outcomes, particularly for recycling facility workers and waste pickers. Plastic can take centuries to break down, so plastic consumed and disposed of today may cause harm for generations. At the same time, plastic production and disposal are projected to triple by 2060, unless action is taken to limit plastic use.
The agreed mandate paves the way for countries to establish a legally binding instrument that addresses the environmental and human rights impacts of plastics throughout their lifecycle, from production to disposal. Notably, the text recognizes the significant contributions of waste pickers and workers in the informal economy, who are often excluded from decision-making processes, lack government support, and are vulnerable to occupational health risks.
The world is drowning in plastic and the creation of this mandate recognizes the urgency of addressing the problem. As negotiations progress towards a global plastics treaty in the coming years, states should ensure that solutions address the many impacts of plastics throughout their lifecycle in a way that protects human rights.