Human rights

The United Nations expert body monitoring worldwide implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights concluded its annual three-week session at Headquarters in New York today, having taken up the compliance reports of Argentina, Mexico, New Zealand and Uzbekistan.

The Human Rights Committee today continued its read-through of its draft “general comment” on article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ‑‑ dealing with the right to freedom of opinion and expression ‑‑ approving language for two more sections in the “first reading” draft of the 54-paragraph text.

The Human Rights Committee today adopted the report, as orally amended, of its Special Rapporteur for Follow-Up on Concluding Observations, which provides a country-by-country update on correspondence with State parties on implementation of the expert body’s recommendations on their compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Continuing a read-through of its draft “general comment” on article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which deals with the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the Human Rights Committee today set language for six more paragraphs in the “first reading” draft of the 54-paragraph text.

The United Nations expert panel monitoring worldwide implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights today continued the work of its ninety-eighth session with a read-through of its draft “general comment” on article 19 of the treaty, which deals with “the right to freedom of opinion and expression”.

While praising New Zealand’s self-critical attitude and constructive engagement with protecting the fundamental rights of its citizens, experts on the Human Rights Committee today raised concerns about possible breaches of the rights of the Maori people and expressed alarm that the country’s age for criminal responsibility was 10, as they wrapped up their two-day consideration of the country’s fifth periodic report on compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

While affirming his country’s “unique but robust constitutional structure”, which afforded opportunities for engagement with human rights protections across all Government institutions and among all citizens, the Minister of Justice of New Zealand, addressing a panel of United Nations rights experts today, nevertheless acknowledged several issues of ongoing concern, including the use of “tasers”, the private management of prisons and the disproportionate number of Maori in the country’s prisons.

Saluting steps taken by Uzbekistan in recent years to reform its human rights legislation ‑‑ notably its abolition of the death penalty and its guarantee of habeas corpus ‑‑ experts on the Human Rights Committee nevertheless pressed that country to address potential gaps on a number of critical fronts, including the independence of its judiciary, the use of torture by various security forces and reports that child labour persisted despite laws prohibiting it.

Argentina had made steady strides in breaking with its legacy of military dictatorship, but the repression of those dark years continued to reverberate in ways that could forestall reform efforts, experts on the Human Rights Committee said today as they wrapped up consideration of that county’s fourth periodic report on compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

From the very beginning of its independence just 18 years ago, Uzbekistan had sought to protect and promote the civil and political rights of all its citizens and had moved swiftly to adopt legislative, administrative and other measures to that end, such as abolishing the death penalty in 2008, the Director of the country’s National Human Rights Centre told the Human Rights Committee today.