Author: Human Rights Watch

A United Nations panel issued guiding principles today making clear that the pursuit of minerals needed to transition from fossil fuels needs to safeguard human rights, justice, and equity.

The Guiding Principles on Critical Energy Transition Minerals arrive at a crucial moment. Around the globe, governments and companies from industrialized countries are competing for “critical” minerals required for the world’s urgently needed fossil fuel phaseout and transition to renewable energy. But the rush on mining brings additional risks for the rights of Indigenous peoples and communities living near mines, including land loss, toxic pollution, child labor, and corruption.

The UN panel, established by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in April and composed of governments, international agencies, and industry as well as several civil society groups, underscores that “human rights must be at the core of all mineral value chains.” It emphasizes that the “urgency of the energy transition cannot justify irresponsible practices in mining” and specifically calls on governments to uphold the rights of Indigenous peoples. 

While the panel identified some structural problems in the mining sector, others remain unaddressed. For example, it did not discuss the harmful impacts of secret investment arbitration in international investment and trade frameworks. At the same time, the panel opens the door to discussions around reducing demand for new mining, which could reduce the risk of human rights and environmental harms. The panel recommends a UN process to agree on targets for circularity, including recycling and reuse, and material efficiency.

Ultimately, the impact of the UN principles will depend on how meaningfully they are implemented. The secretary-general should provide more detail on holding governments accountable to these principles. He should also consult with civil society groups on options for an international body to monitor and investigate human rights and environmental abuses in cases where communities find their rights are being violated in the context of mining for energy transition. Over 300 civil society groups have recommended such a mechanism.

Finally, the secretary-general should ensure that a proposed new expert advisory group on transition minerals includes equal participation of Indigenous peoples, affected communities, workers, and civil society groups alongside governments and industry groups.

The new principles offer a strong foundation for a just transition from fossil fuels. Now the hard work of putting them into practice should begin.

(Johannesburg) – Mozambican police have committed widespread abuses against journalists and civil society activists that could seriously impair their work ahead of elections scheduled for October 9, 2024, Human Rights Watch said today.

The authorities have rarely investigated formal complaints of harassment, threats, physical assault, and arbitrary arrest and detention targeting those covering election activities.

“The Mozambican authorities’ failure to seriously investigate attacks on journalists and civil society activists is escalating the climate of fear in the country,” said Allan Ngari, Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should take urgent measures to end these abuses and foster a safe environment for journalists and activists to work.”

Between August 8 and September 9, Human Rights Watch interviewed 32 people in Maputo, Nampula, Zambezia, and Cabo Delgado provinces. Interviewees included journalists, human rights activists, political leaders, and a police spokesman.

In recent months, the authorities have disrupted opposition party campaign meetings and other election related activities. Security forces have often broken up peaceful protests and those journalists and activists arrested have been detained for prolonged periods without charge.

Rui Minja, a journalist with the private television station TV Sucesso, based in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, said that at about 2 a.m. on August 24, a day after he published a report about police disrupting an opposition campaign event, he received an anonymous call from a man who addressed him by name and instructed him to look out the window. Minja said he saw a white Toyota car, without a license plate and with several people inside, parked in front of the gate of his house.

“As soon as I saw the car, I panicked, hung up the phone, and [then] texted fellow journalists, and also called the police,” he said. “When the police officers arrived, the car was no longer there, but they found a police hat by the gate.” A few days later, Minja received another call from someone he believed to be the previous caller, who told him that the people in the car “had been sent to kill him” and that “he should abandon his camisola (jersey),” which Minja understood to be a reference to his job. He said that on September 3, unknown assailants broke into his house while he was not at home. The intruders damaged the main entrance door and searched the house’s bedrooms, but did not take anything with them.

Sheila Wilson, a journalist and activist working with the Maputo-based Centre for Democracy and Human Rights, said that on June 4, police arrested her while reporting live from a protest of former secret service agents over alleged nonpayment of pensions. She said the officers grabbed her, threw her under the seat of a police van, and took her to a police station, where she was held incommunicado for more than five hours before being released.

The same day, five unidentified men grabbed Laves Macatane, a reporter, and Hélder Matwassa, a camera operator, from the private television station STV. The attackers tied the journalists’ hands and pushed Matwassa to the ground, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The journalists said that their assailants ran through a police security cordon and left in an unlicensed Toyota vehicle without being questioned or chased.

Plainclothes police officers detained Jota Pachoneia, a political activist based in the northern Nampula province, when he was leaving his house for work around 4 a.m. on February 9, days after he recorded and shared on social media a video criticizing Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi. He was released three days later, without charges, after the Mozambique Bar Association intervened. Pachoneia told Human Rights Watch that during his detention, he was held incommunicado and deprived of food and water.

The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) reported that attacks against Mozambican journalists tend to increase during election years. The group recorded an increase in attacks from 11 cases in 2022 to 28 last year. Most were related to the October 2023 municipal elections, which were marred by a police crackdown on the opposition. Ernesto Nhanale, MISA’s secretary general, told Human Rights Watch that those responsible for these abuses were mainly politicians, government officials, and the police: “Election [in Mozambique] is a very sensitive process that has led to volatility and violations against journalists.”

The Mozambican authorities have yet to prosecute the alleged perpetrators of attacks included in MISA’s 2023 report, despite formal complaints lodged with the relevant authorities.

A police spokesman, Leonel Muchina, told Human Rights Watch by phone on September 9 that: “The Mozambican police take very seriously the work of journalists and are working hard to investigate abuses against them.” He did not provide details of these investigations or a date at which they would be concluded.

“The media and civil society actors need to be able to do their job without fear of reprisal for Mozambique’s October elections to be credible,” Ngari said. “Mozambique’s partners should press the government to publicly condemn these attacks and commit to protect media rights and an open civic space during and beyond the election periods.”

(Bangkok) – Thailand’s new government should take concrete steps to make human rights a priority, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra.

Prime Minister Paetongtarn is expected to take office on September 16, 2024.

“The Paetongtarn government needs to act quickly to address Thailand’s widespread human rights problems,” said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “To show a clean break from the country’s abusive past, the new government should end pervasive repression of free speech, quash abusive laws, and drop the cases against all those prosecuted for exercising their basic rights.”

Since the 2014 military coup, Thai authorities have imposed tight restrictions on critical and dissident opinions. Following pro-democracy protests that began in July 2020, almost 2,000 people have been prosecuted for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful public assembly.

The authorities have in recent years prosecuted at least 272 people on charges of insulting the monarchy (lese majeste). Thai authorities have often held critics of the monarchy in pretrial detention for months without access to bail. On May 14, the anti-monarchy activist Netiporn Sanesangkhom, 28, died during pretrial detention on lese majeste charges.

During her election campaign in 2023, the Pheu Thai Party’s then-prime minister candidate Paetongtarn promised to use parliamentary channels to discuss preventing royal insult charges from being arbitrarily used as a political tool. The new government should reform the lese majeste law, adopt a moratorium on prosecution and pretrial detention under the current law, and adopt a proposal for a comprehensive amnesty, Human Rights Watch said.

The Paetongtarn government should also immediately dismiss all charges against those still being prosecuted for Covid-19 restriction offenses. The nationwide enforcement of emergency measures to control the spread of Covid-19 was lifted in October 2022, but Thai authorities are still prosecuting at least 1,469 people.

Despite the adoption of the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights in 2019, Thai authorities have failed to protect rights defenders from reprisals by state agencies and private companies using strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP). The new government should immediately curb the abuse of the judicial system to harass and punish critics and whistleblowers.

Human rights defenders should be able to carry out their work in a safe and enabling environment, Human Rights Watch said. The killing and enforced disappearance of human rights defenders and other civil society activists is a serious blot on Thailand’s human rights record. Cover-ups have effectively blocked efforts to pursue justice, even in high-profile cases in the public interest; such as the ethnic Lahu activist Chaiyaphum Pa-sae, the ethnic Karen activist Porlajee Rakchongchareon, and the Muslim lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit.

Prime Minister Paetongtarn should effectively take steps to end torture and enforced disappearance. The Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act became effective on February 22, 2023. But none of the outstanding cases of enforced disappearance, including nine exiled Thai dissidents who were abducted in neighboring countries during the previous government of Prime Minister Gen. Prayut Chan-ocha, have been resolved.

The United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has raised concerns about enforced disappearances in the context of transnational transfers of dissidents between Thailand and neighboring countries.

Thai authorities in recent years have violated the international prohibition against refoulement by returning refugees and asylum seekers to countries where they are likely to face persecution. Thai authorities have forcibly returned asylum seekers and refugees from Bahrain, Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Türkiye, Vietnam, and other countries. This inhumane practice undermines Thailand’s reputation as a refuge for people fleeing war and persecution.

“Thailand’s new government has a chance to chart a new course on human rights and set a positive example for other countries in the region,” Sifton said. “Prime Minister Paetongtarn can demonstrate that her government is genuinely reform-minded by prioritizing human rights issues and ensuring that effective actions are promptly taken.”

Today, the Australian government committed to developing the country’s first data protection law for children. The decision, which rights organizations including Human Rights Watch, Australian academics, and many Australians have long called for, comes as part of a package of reforms to Australia’s privacy law. These reforms include creating the right to sue for serious invasions of privacy and the criminalization of doxing, or the malicious release of personal data. 

By committing to a Children’s Online Privacy Code, the government has followed through on its promise to require online providers and companies to uphold the best interests of children when handling their personal data. The government has directed the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner to draft the code, and has given the regulator three years and AU$3 million (US$2 million) to do so. 

The reforms have been prompted by increased reports that children’s personal data has been exploited to secretly surveil them in their online classrooms and deep into their private lives; used to target them with harmful content; or manipulated into sexually explicit deepfakes of other children.

The government’s decision signals its intent to meaningfully protect children’s privacy online. Australia has long relied on self- or co-regulatory models of governance, which lets companies write and oversee their own rules. But whether in advertising, medicine, or technology, these approaches have resulted in drastically weaker protections for children and all Australians. It is significant that the government has broken with the past and given an independent, expert regulator the mandate and enforcement powers to protect children’s best interests over commercial ones.

Unfortunately, everyone over the age of 18 must wait and see whether their data privacy might be protected, too. In the face of resistance by trade groups, the government has backed off or watered down many of its original proposals to protect all Australians. Debate over these measures has been postponed, likely until after the next election by May 2025.

Australia’s attorney general once said that “personal privacy of citizens is under attack.” This remains true. The government should build on today’s announcement and start working to protect everyone’s data privacy.

And as the Australian information commissioner’s office begins work on the Children’s Online Privacy Code, it should consult with children on developing comprehensive protections for their full range of rights, so that they can safely learn, grow, and play online as they do in the physical world.

(Geneva) — World Health Organization (WHO) member countries negotiating a new international agreement to address pandemics need to ensure that the agreement reflects their domestic and international obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill all human rights, Human Rights Watch said today. Negotiators will meet in Geneva for two weeks starting September 9, 2024. 

The draft WHO Pandemic Agreement, which negotiators hope to finalize before the next World Health Assembly in May 2025, proposes to fundamentally alter the international system of pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. After two years of negotiations, the draft still risks repeating the profound failures of the Covid-19 pandemic by failing to align with international human rights law standards and principles.

“The WHO Pandemic Agreement is a rare opportunity to establish guard rails to prevent a Covid-19-like human rights catastrophe from happening again,” said Matt McConnell, economic justice and rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But by failing to clearly require governments to align their responses with their human rights obligations, it ignores Covid’s lessons.”

Four-and-a-half years after the WHO declared Covid-19 a pandemic, more than 7 million deaths have been reported. The harm caused by both the virus and governments’ responses will be felt for decades to come.

During the pandemic, governments weaponized public health responses to target activists and opponents and violate the rights of asylum seekers. Wealthy governments hoarded healthcare resources and privileged private profit over people’s lives by blocking efforts to waive intellectual property rules. Pharmaceutical companies refused to share their technology widely, limiting global production of lifesaving health products, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

Many governments closed schools without adequate alternatives, which affected children unequally and led to widespread, devastating learning losses. Others rushed to endorse online learning platforms without regard to how intrusive they were or how they surveilled children. Governments frequently failed to ensure the rights of older peopleand people with disabilities. They also failed to address the deep impact of the pandemic on women and girls, and aglobal surge in violence against women. 

Despite the pandemic, many governments still failed to meet vital public healthcare spending benchmarks, leaving many people unable to access needed health care. While some governments like the United States made major investments in programs to keep people housed and in social security to protect people’s livelihoods, resulting domestic reductions in inequality proved as temporary as these programs. 

Recognizing many of these failures, the WHO’s World Health Assembly in December 2021 established an intergovernmental negotiating body to draft and negotiate an international instrument to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. This negotiating body consists of representatives from all 194 WHO member countries, but the process has been guided by representatives from six countries, one from each of the six WHO regions. 

Tasked with completing these negotiations by June 2024, the group’s process was widely criticized by civil society organizations as inadequately transparent, participatory, or consultative. Hampered by the short timeline, immense complexity, diplomatic tension, and substantive disagreement, negotiators requested a one-year extension for the process, which they received. But negotiators may now aim to conclude their work as soon as December. 

At the Geneva meeting, the negotiating body will need to address major substantive and procedural concerns remainingabout how the negotiations are being conducted and what is and is not reflected in the draft agreement under discussion. This includes financing, the transfer of technologies, the equitable distribution of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics, and how the agreement will ensure its efficacy.

When the body previously gathered in November 2023, Human Rights Watch issued a joint statement with Amnesty International, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Commission of Jurists calling on negotiators to enshrine core human rights standards protected under international law in the agreement. 

The organizations highlighted that international human rights law provides a framework to guide the resolution of outstanding concerns in a way that complies with governments’ existing human rights obligations. As member countries meet in Geneva, they should ensure that human rights guides negotiations by:

Reflecting core principles of human rights law essential to an effective and equitable pandemic response: Reinstate (e.g., in Article 3) fundamental principles of human rights law that appear to have been removed from the current draft, including non-discrimination, gender equality, and the need to protect people in vulnerable situations. Where human rights are currently mentioned in the agreement (e.g., in Article 3.2), they should encompass the full scope of governments’ obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights, both domestically and extraterritorially. 

Expanding equitable and affordable access to pandemic-related health products: Where the agreement discusses access to testing, vaccines, and therapeutics during health emergencies (e.g., in Articles 10, 11, and 12), it should reflect governments’ obligations to ensure that such access is also affordable. This should be accomplished by facilitating technology transfers consistent with governments’ international obligations to provide international assistance and cooperation, and to ensure that everyone can access the applications of scientific progress. It should also prohibit retaliation against governments that take advantage of “flexibilities” under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement).

Reaffirming governments’ obligations to ensure any restrictions on human rights in the context of pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response are consistent with international human rights law: Reaffirm (e.g., in Article 3 and throughout Chapter II) governments’ obligations to demonstrate that any measures that have the effect of restricting the realization of human rights are evidence-based, legally grounded, nondiscriminatory, and necessary and proportionate to a legitimate purpose, such as the protection of others’ rights. It should also reiterate that, whenever such restrictions undermine the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, governments should provide appropriate relief.

Improving governments’ implementation: Include (e.g., in Chapter III) a system of monitoring and periodic review that draws on the best practices of other international instruments to ensure its rights-aligned implementation, including continually expanding affordable access to testing, treatments, and vaccines during health emergencies. Additionally, the agreement should reaffirm (e.g., in Article 3) that domestic laws may not be used as an excuse for falling short of international standards, and specify more clearly the bases upon which a party may make reservations (e.g., in Article 27). 

Negotiators have not addressed these and similar recommendations calling for a rights-based agreement, including those raised by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and major coalitions of civil society groups and experts, such as the People’s Medicine Alliance, Civil Society Alliance, Global Health Law Consortium, and Geneva Global Health Hub. 

The negotiators’ unwillingness to address these issues is more than just a missed opportunity, Human Rights Watch said. Should the agreement proceed without addressing these concerns, it may fail to prevent many of the disastrous domestic and international policies that motivated its creation. It would muddle international human rights law, international trade law, and global health law, and possibly reinforce the failed idea that governments should rely on voluntary efforts by private companies to respond to a global health crisis.

“Negotiators meeting in Geneva still have the chance to draft an agreement to ensure that governments and companies respect, protect, and fulfill all human rights when the next pandemic comes around,” McConnell said. “But if governments rush to enact something that falls short of their existing human rights obligations, there is a real danger that the agreement could instead serve as a tool to justify rights violations.”

One year ago, the Malaysian government launched Baitul Mahabbah, an initiative to move children ages 10 and younger from regular immigration detention centers, known as depots, and place them in dedicated centers for children. There are now 170 children – some unaccompanied – in Baitul Mahabbah centers, facilities that do not provide a genuine alternative to detention.

Children are among the thousands of irregular migrants that the Malaysian government detains in conditions that put them at risk of physical abuse and psychological harm. In March, Human Rights Watch documented how Malaysia’s abusive and punitive immigration system violates international human rights law, including the international consensus that detention of children is never in their best interests.

For more than a decade, Malaysian officials have considered alternatives to detention, particularly for children, that would be noncustodial and community-based. The Malaysian home minister, Saifuddin Nasution, has said that children should not be detained in immigration depots. Yet the Baitul Mahabbah centers, set up by the Home Ministry, continue to deprive children of their liberty.

In August, I visited the Baitul Mahabbah center near the Kuala Lumpur international airport, which opened last year in a former school. There were approximately 50 ethnic Rohingya children, including some who were unaccompanied, detained at the center. They were being guarded by immigration officials and volunteer security corps members.

The Rohingya children and their mothers told me that conditions were better than in the main immigration depots, but they were unhappy that they were not allowed visitors. They also wondered when they would be allowed to leave.

Many of these women and children faced violence and deprivation in refugee camps in Bangladesh, and a system of apartheid in Myanmar. They risked their lives by taking a treacherous sea voyage to reach Malaysia. There are more than 190,000 refugees and asylum seekers registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Malaysia, including over 109,000 Rohingya.

The Malaysian government does not allow UNHCR access to Baitul Mahabbah centers – nor any of the immigration depots – to review asylum claims. Meanwhile, it is detaining thousands of Rohingya refugees and asylum seekers indefinitely, because they cannot be deported.

Baitul Mahabbah should only be a temporary measure. The Malaysian government should focus on developing a plan, in coordination with civil society groups, that would see all children released from immigration detention. 

(Geneva, September 9, 2024) – The international treaty banning cluster munitions is making demonstrable progress, but is being tested by new use and transfers of cluster munitions by countries that have not joined it, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing an annual monitoring report on cluster munitions.

The 100-page report, “Cluster Munition Monitor 2024,” details the policy and practice of all countries with respect to the international treaty that prohibits cluster munitions and requires destruction of stockpiles, clearance of areas contaminated by cluster munition remnants, and victim assistance.

“The Convention on Cluster Munitions provides a vital framework for ending the immediate and long-term harm and suffering caused by these abhorrent weapons,” said Mary Wareham, deputy crisis, conflict, and arms director at Human Rights Watch, and editor of “Cluster Munition Monitor 2024.” “All countries should join and adhere to the convention if they are serious about protecting civilians from these weapons in the face of rising conflict.”

Cluster munitions can be fired from the ground by artillery, rockets, missiles, or mortars, or dropped by aircraft. They typically open in the air, dispersing multiple submunitions or bomblets over a wide area. Many submunitions fail to explode on initial impact, leaving unexploded duds that can indiscriminately injure and kill like landmines for years, until they are found and destroyed.

During 2023 – the latest year covered by the report’s casualty statistics – 93 percent of cluster munition casualties recorded by the Monitor were civilians. Children made up 47 percent of those killed and injured by cluster munition remnants in 2023.

Cluster munitions were used in Ukraine by Russian and Ukrainian forces in 2023 and through July 2024, while new use was also recorded in Myanmar and Syria. 

Russia has used stocks of old cluster munitions and newly developed models in Ukraine since 2022. Between July 2023 and April 2024, US President Joe Biden approved five transfers to Ukraine of US cluster munitions delivered by 155mm artillery projectiles and by ballistic missiles. 

None of these countries are party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which has 112 members. 

There have been no confirmed reports or allegations of new use, production, or transfers of cluster munitions by any state party since the convention was adopted in Dublin, Ireland on May 30, 2008. 

However, new use and transfers by states that have not signed the convention are testing its norms and universality. And the convention’s provision banning any assistance with prohibited activities is being put to the test, raising interpretive issues and questions over compliance with national laws. 

A July 2024 report shows that cluster munitions stored at a US military base in Germany, which has ratified the convention, have been transferred to Ukraine since July 2023, transiting across Germany in the process. The US removed its stockpiled cluster munitions from Norway and the UK during 2010, but it may still hold stocks at its military bases in member countries such as Italy, Netherlands, and Spain.

All members of the convention should be clear in opposing foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions and the transit of cluster munitions across their territory, airspace, or waters, Human Rights Watch said. 

In December 2023, the convention reached a major milestone when Peru completed the destruction of its stockpiled cluster munitions, as it was the last state party with declared stocks to complete this obligation. Bulgaria, Slovakia, and South Africa announced the completion of the destruction of their respective cluster munition stocks in September 2023. These developments mean that member countries have collectively now destroyed 100 percent of their declared cluster munition stocks, destroying 1.49 million cluster munitions and 179 million submunitions. 

According to “Cluster Munition Monitor 2024,” 28 countries and other areas are contaminated or suspected to be contaminated by cluster munition remnants. Cluster munition attacks caused civilian casualties in Myanmar, Syria, and Ukraine in 2023; while people were killed or injured by cluster munition remnants in these countries and in Azerbaijan, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Mauritania, and Yemen. 

Member states altogether cleared more than 83 square kilometers of affected land in 2023, destroying at least 73,348 unexploded submunitions and other cluster munition remnants. Bosnia and Herzegovina completed clearance of cluster munition remnants in August 2023, becoming the ninth state party to meet its clearance obligations under the convention.

In an alarming development, however, Lithuania enacted a law in July 2024 approving its withdrawal from the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The withdrawal will take effect six months after the United Nations and the convention’s member states are notified, unless Lithuania retracts this measure or goes to war. 

“Lithuania’s ill-considered move to leave the Convention on Cluster Munitions stains its otherwise excellent reputation on humanitarian disarmament and ignores the risks of civilian harm,” Wareham said. “It’s not too late for Lithuania to heed calls to stop its planned withdrawal.”

“Cluster Munition Monitor 2024” is the 15th annual monitoring report by the Cluster Munition Coalition, the global coalition of nongovernmental organizations co-founded by Human Rights Watch. The report will be presented to countries attending the 12th meeting of the Convention on Cluster Munitions at the United Nations in Geneva on September 10-13.

On August 23, I was aboard the Geo Barents, the rescue ship operated by the humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders or MSF), in the port of Salerno when the news arrived that the ship was to be detained by authorities for 60 days. Instead of witnessing lifesaving efforts in the Mediterranean Sea, I was witness to the Italian government’s callous obstruction.

On September 4, Italian authorities detained another rescue vessel, the Sea Watch-5, marking the 24th time they have used a 2023 law that allows authorities to fine rescue shipmasters and detain or even seize ships on spurious grounds. The law also requires rescue ships sail to a designated port after each rescue, usually far from the areas where they undertake search and rescue missions.

These measures severely limit rescue capacity in the Central Mediterranean, one of the deadliest migration routes in the world. Since 2014, more than 30,000 people have died or gone missing attempting to cross the Mediterranean.

They also make it more likely that Libyan forces will intercept boats and take migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees back to Libya where, according to the United Nations, they face systematic and widespread abuse including arbitrary detention, sexual and other violence, torture, and forced labor.

This appears to be the intention.

Italian authorities accuse the Geo Barents, like other rescue ships, of failing to comply with orders from Libyan authorities. MSF says its crew was, in fact, awaiting further instruction from a Libyan patrol boat when it saw dozens of people in an overcrowded boat end up in the water. They rushed to help—as basic humanity and the law of the sea require—and saved everyone.

There is a wealth of evidence that shows Libyan Coast Guard and other forces are unreliable, unprofessional, and can be dangerous. The UN has also found evidence of collusion between the Libyan coast guards and trafficking and smuggling networks.

MSF has appealed the detention of the Geo Barents, and there is a hopeful precedent. In June, a Calabria court ruled the March detention of an SOS Humanity ship was unlawful, concluding that the Libyan Coast Guard cannot be considered a legitimate search and rescue actor.

UN rights experts recently said Italy’s policies were “without justification” and responsible for “costing lives in the Central Mediterranean.”

Instead of obstructing humanitarian action at sea, the Italian government should respect the international law of the sea and, above all, the lives and rights of all people in distress at sea. 

(Nairobi) – South Sudan’s parliament has approved two laws on transitional justice that advance accountability and justice for victims of abuses committed since the start of the country’s armed conflict which broke out in December 2013, Human Rights Watch said today. The bills, adopted on September 3, 2024, were sent to parliamentary committees that will address outstanding issues and make final changes before forwarding them to the president for signing.

The 2015 and 2018 agreements to end the conflict in South Sudan set out to create three bodies to address past abuses. The bills would establish two of them—a Commission for Truth, Reconciliation, and Healing and a Compensation and Reparations Authority—but not the third body, a hybrid court for crimes committed during the war. The court would be established in partnership with the African Union under the 2015 Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan and the 2018 Revitalized Agreement.

“South Sudan’s approval of these long overdue transitional justice bills is the result of sustained pressure from victims of atrocities, their families, and civil society groups,” said Nyagoah Tut Pur, South Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But much more remains to be done to ensure credible processes to advance justice and uphold victims’ rights, notably setting up a hybrid court.”

Under the current bill, the truth commission is mandated to “inquire into all aspects of human rights violations and abuses, breaches of the rule of law and excessive abuses of power” committed by all state and non-state actors. The commission is further mandated to “investigate, document, and report on the course and causes of conflict” and “recommend processes for the full enjoyment by victims of the right to remedy, including by suggesting measures for reparations and compensation.”

The specialized parliamentary committees should address several key shortcomings in the bills before sending them to the president, Human Rights Watch said. Clarity is needed on the period covered by the truth commission, on which the bill is silent. The 2018 peace deal had proposed the commission’s mandate to begin with the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended Sudan’s long war and paved the way for South Sudan’s independence through to the 2018 peace agreement.  

Under the truth commission bill, those who disclose and inform the commission of crimes for which they are responsible are excluded from amnesty if they committed serious crimes under South Sudanese law or the international crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. This exclusion should also include “gross violations of human rights,” Human Rights Watch said.

The provisions on selection, nomination, and vetting of the chairperson and commissioners of the truth commission as well as the executive director of the reparations authority should also be spelled out more clearly to ensure that competent, impartial, and highly qualified candidates are appointed and to ensure the independence of the bodies. Under the truth commission bill, the African Union (AU) nominates three of the seven commissioners, who are not South Sudanese nationals. The AU should engage early in this process to ensure that the design and implementation of this body is safeguarded against political and other unwarranted interference, Human Rights Watch said.

The 2018 peace agreement provides for creating a compensation and reparations fund and authority, given the destructive impact of the conflict on South Sudan’s citizens. The aim of the authority is to “provide material and financial support to citizens whose property was destroyed by the conflict and help them to rebuild their livelihoods.”

The reparations authority bill addresses the relationship between the authority and the truth commission. Transitional justice mechanisms function better when there is advance consideration of how they will work together. The truth commission bill provides that in exercising its powers and functions, the reparations authority will “receive applications from victims … referred by the truth commission and make the necessary compensation and reparation.” 

The reparations authority bill only provides symbolic reparation measures and collective reparation after completion of its mandate. The reparations authority can recommend “personal reparation” to the truth commission “only where it is not possible to provide collective measures.” The specialized parliamentary committees should change this to ensure that personal reparations are not a last resort, Human Rights Watch said. 

The UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparations for Victims states that reparations should be adequate, effective, and prompt. To meet this requirement, a robust reparations framework should be developed. If the parliamentary committees do not address this, the mechanisms, once established, should develop a reparations framework and rules of procedure. These should expand on the linkages between the two mechanisms and ensure their design and operations are victim-centered, responsive, and compliant with international reparations standards, Human Rights Watch said. 

These two transitional justice bills envisage a major role for government and donor funding to implement the truth and reparations process. Once finally adopted and promulgated as law, the UN, donors, and the South Sudanese authorities should develop a strong fundraising model and undertake a system for oversight of the management of funds to support transitional justice. 

While moving ahead on the truth commission and a reparations process, South Sudan and the AU should urgently revisit the call to establish the hybrid court. Such a court is critical for there to be genuine justice for victims of past atrocities and their families, Human Rights Watch said. 

The envisioned AU-backed hybrid court would bring together judges and prosecutors from South Sudan and across Africa, as the country’s domestic court system is not prepared to handle such sensitive and complex cases. The AU prepared a draft statute for the court in 2016 and developed a memorandum of understanding for the court’s establishment with the government in 2017. Experts reviewed these documents in 2019, but progress on the court’s establishment stalled due to South Sudan’s deliberate moves to block the court and a lack of communication and shared understanding between South Sudan and the AU of the steps involved. Human Rights Watch, alongside South Sudanese, regional and other international groups has repeatedly raised concerns that the AU’s apparent half-hearted approach to the court raises doubts over its genuine commitment to its establishment. 

Governments have a duty under international law to investigate and prosecute serious crimes, such as crimes against humanity and war crimes. This helps to ensure individual victims’ rights to truth, justice, and an effective remedy, along with combating impunity. Major international treaties that South Sudan has ratified, the Convention against Torture and the Geneva Conventions of 1949, provide for fairly prosecuting those responsible for serious crimes.

The failure to hold to account those responsible for serious crimes under international law has contributed to ongoing rights violations and a wider crisis of impunity. Criminal prosecutions before the proposed hybrid court’s establishment can complement the work of the truth commission and reparations authority, strengthening prospects in South Sudan for achieving justice and accountability and avoiding new violations.

As the transitional justice bills progress, the AU and South Sudan should publicly underscore that the hybrid court is a priority and take advantage of the momentum around the new laws to move the process forward and maximize the chances for truth, justice, and reparations for all victims. The African Union has the authority to establish the court even without the South Sudanese government’s involvement and should move to finalize, adopt and publicize the court’s legal instruments, Human Rights Watch said.  

“South Sudan’s regional and international partners should ensure a comprehensive truth and justice process that would address systemic and entrenched impunity,” Pur said. “The real test of South Sudan’s willingness to confront its abusive past and the African Union’s commitment to support victims still lies in how they pursue the creation of a hybrid court.” 

 

Last week, the Ethiopian government finally released seven long-detained senior members of the Oromo Liberation Front, an opposition political party.

Abdi Regassa, Dawit Abdeta, Lammi Begna, Michael Boran, Kenessa Ayana, Gaada Oljira, and Gaada Gebissa should never have been arrested, let alone jailed. They spent four years in detention without charge while the government ignored multiple court orders for their release.

The authorities repeatedly violated their rights, as Human Rights Watch’s research found. For months at a time, they were forcibly disappeared or held incommunicado, leaving their lawyers and families with no knowledge of their whereabouts. Authorities frequently moved the men between makeshift and official detention sites, including a police training camp and a poultry farm where they were kept in a storage room with no light or water supply. Kenessa Ayana and Gaada Gebissa suffered serious health conditions in detention.

Their family members and supporters have welcomed their release, but the circumstances that resulted in their arbitrary arrest and prolonged detention remain, putting all politicians at risk. The government should provide prompt and adequate redress.

The Ethiopian government needs to address the broader issue of ensuring that those engaged in peaceful political activity need not worry about putting their lives and liberty at risk. In April, Batte Urgessa, a colleague of the detained men who had campaigned tirelessly for their release, was brutally murdered shortly after being released from detention. 

Ethiopia’s partners, including the United States, have welcomed the release of the opposition figures, but they should go further. They should underscore the illegality of the detentions and press Ethiopian authorities to end the practice of arbitrary arrest and detention without charge as well as the enforced disappearances of government critics, both of which remain common in Ethiopia today.