FORUM-ASIA and Asian Centre for Human Rights organised the national consultation to prepare for the Stakeholders’ Report under the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) from 13 – 14 November. About 40 civil society representatives participated in the event. About 192 organisations and 13 individual human rights activists endorsed the report, which was submitted to the OHCHR on 20 November.
(New Delhi, 23 November 2007) FORUM-ASIA and Asian Centre for Human Rights organised the national consultation to prepare for the Stakeholders’ Report under the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on 13 -14 November. About 40 civil society representatives from India participated in the event. About 192 organisations and 13 individual human rights activists endorsed for the report, which was submitted to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on 20 November.
The UPR is a new innovation of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). Using this system, human rights records of all the UN member States can be scrutinised by a common system. NGOs are given space to actively engage in the review, by submitting five-page “Stakeholders’ Report” to OHCHR. Based on the report, OHCHR will prepare a ten-page summary of “credible and reliable information” by stakeholders such as NGOs, national human rights institutions, labour unions and religious groups.
India is one of the three Asian countries to submit the report this year. During the consultation, participants worked in groups and gave their inputs for the report based on thematic issues.
On the second day of the meeting, an outline of the Stakeholders’ report, based on the input the day before, was presented for feedback. A draft report was sent to all participants for review, before it was finalised.
The report highlighted impunity as the root cause of massive and flagrant human rights violations in the country. The other key civil and political rights issues featured in the report were armed conflicts, public emergency, derogation and violations of the right to life.
According to the report, 21 out of 28 states in India are afflicted by internal armed conflicts. The report also pointed out that economic, social and cultural rights being excluded in the development process. The state of vulnerable groups, violence against women, Dalit, religious minorities, children, stigmatisation of de-notified tribes and attack on human rights defenders were also included in the report.
During the consultation, participants agreed to hold a national public hearing before the UPR, and to send representatives to lobby the HRC a week before the UPR.
Meanwhile, another purpose of the national consultation was to build future strategies of action. As a “short-term strategy”, participants agreed to circulate the report to individuals, groups and networks for endorsement, including lobbying the press to highlight the issue. As a “midterm strategy”, a more detailed report – Lobbying Document – will be compiled, to compliment the Stakeholders’ Report, which was only limited to five pages.
The Lobbying Document will include the Stakeholders’ Report and civil society’s response to the reports by the government and National Human Rights Commission of India. The government and NHRC will be reminded of their obligation to hold a consultation with stakeholders before preparing their report for UPR. It will be translated into different Indian languages for larger circulation.
The last strategy deals with the period after the UPR. Civil society organisations plan to hold public awareness campaigns and public discussions on the government’s report, which include parallel events during the hearing on India in May by the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. This will also be in conjunction with the Durban Review Conference, which is the follow-up of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (2001).
