human rights

In een nieuwe aflevering van de NVVN-podcast spreekt Simone Filippini met Eduard Nazarski, oud-directeur van Amnesty International en expert op het gebied van mensenrechten en vluchtelingen.

Gasthoofdredacteur Elaine Lebon-McGregor bepleit innovatief, multilevel perspectief

Vredes- en mensenrechtenorganisaties PAX, Stop Wapenhandel en het Nederlands Juristen Comité voor de Mensenrechten (NJCM) zijn een spoedprocedure begonnen tegen de Nederlandse Staat.

The United Nations (UN): a promotor and protector of human rights? Most of my students snort at the suggestion. Their scepticism is understandable. They see a world in which wars rage on, refugees search for shelter by the millions, police violence often goes unpunished, political opponents are arrested, and countries unilaterally attack other countries without repercussions. The UN may serve as a forum for political debates but it does nothing for the realisation of human rights on the ground, they argue. Are they right?

From the elevated aims set out by its founding Charter 70 years ago, to the life-saving work it undertakes today in peace and security, development and human rights, the United Nations is real and critical to the day-to-day lives of many people around the world.

The main emphasis of my activities within the UN was on human rights. With hindsight, the past 35 years have seen great advances of the UN in this field. An impressive normative framework has been created; supervisory procedures have been developed. I was privileged to be involved in this development in various capacities: as a government delegate, as an expert within the UN Sub-Commission on the Protection of Minorities and the Prevention of Discrimination and later within the UN Commission on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Human Rights Committee, and as a representative of non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

This edition mainly concerns the UN Commission of Inquiry for Human Rights in North Korea, created in March 2013, and the UN International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC).

In a nearly 400 page-long report, the Commission of Inquiry completely and utterly condemned the North Korean state by accusing it of committing systematic and widespread crimes against humanity against its own citizens. These violations – essential components of the totalitarian system, according to the report – are of such gravity, scale and nature that they “reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”

Im Sook and the SAGE working group hoped that the public would “pay attention to this place deprived of love” because according to them it should not be forgotten.

The findings of the report are appalling, blood chilling for those who read it. Although many facts were already known, this report is unprecedented in the way it sheds light on the scale and nature of the grave human rights violations that have been committed in this country for decades.