wednesday 28.03.07 morning

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
4th SESSION
Report of the Wednesday 28th of March 2007, 10:00-13:00


The order of the was to examine the reports of the Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (Mr. Philip Alston), on People of African Descent (Mr. Peter Kasanda) and on contemporary forms of racisms, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance (Mr. Doudou Diène).
In the report of Mr. Alston, 4 countries are listed, where the situation is particularly difficult because of various reasons (principle of obligatory death sentence, ignoring the interdiction of the death sentence for young people, social cleaning…). These countries are Iran, Guatemala, Sri Lanka and the Philippines.
Mr. Kasanda recalled that racial profiling is a violation of the right of non-discrimination and that racial discrimination in the justice process (Durban Program) is illegal. He recommends to take explicit legislative provisions against these frequent violations.
In the report of Mr. Diène, it is interesting to see that Switzerland is listed as a country where there is a real dynamic of racism and xenophobia. Switzerland is the illustration of the political use of identity tension coming from the multicultural process. France is also very concerned with this report and has to deal with the grave words of Mr. Pascal Sevran which said that the under-development of Africa is due to “the penis of the black man”.
Many countries intervened to show their support to the recommendations made by Special Rapporteurs and asked them practical answers to the problems that he brings up.
The theme of the relation between Human Rights and Humanitarian law was an important question concerning the USA. They asked for further information on the situation in Iran. The Special Rapporteur said that as it was a central question for his mandate, the debate was very utile and thus he would like to go to the USA.
Singapore did a very clear speech on death sentence. As there is no international consensus on this problem and neither on the definition of what is the most serious crime, this practice cannot be prohibited by the International law. Furthermore, this practice is, in some countries, part of the judicial system, and as every state is able to choose how to protect its citizens, they should be able to choose if they want to abolish the death sentence or not.
Mr. Alston answered to this, that it was not in the order of the day. It is right that each country can choose to use the death sentence or not but its execution has to be in accordance with the Human Rights principle.

Another fact came up very often. That is the political will of the states to fight against the contemporary forms of racism. The instruments of International law have to apply for the promotion of racial tolerance and the acceptance of existing differences within the society. Emphasis was put on the necessity of dialogue and understanding.

The last important problem that Mr. Diène pointed out is the incidence of the liberty of expression on racism. This principle is often used to make propaganda and he recalled that expression is a right but also has to be restricted when it encourages racism. He took the example of the Danish caricatures.

Finally, the DPRK accused clearly Japan of racial discrimination against their nationals living in Japan. Japan replied that it was not founded but the DPRK refused to accept these allegations saying that Japan failed to recognize its crimes. The DPRK called upon the Government of Japan to stop these “cruel repression” and to stop driving the Council in the wrong way.