Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts
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Center for Law Information supports "Special Procedure on climate change and human rights"

Wednesday, March 2, 2011


11-02-28 CC Letter, ver 3 (1).pdf 

A group of world Non Governmental Organizations, including the Center for Law Information (CeLI), petition for the establishment of a  Special Procedure on climate change and human rights. The NGOs consider that establishment of a special procedure, such as that which provide a mandate to a special rapporteur, would be an efficient way to tackle the issue.

A letter was sent to diplomatic missions in Geneva urging them to "publicly call for the creation of a Special Procedure on climate change and human rights who reports to the Human Rights Council in a resolution to be adopted at the 17th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council in June 2011."

See attached letter for further information

 

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Human Right to Water and the Management of Indonesia’s Water Resources

Monday, December 13, 2010

I recently uploaded my World Water Week presentation’s background paper to the SSRN. The title of the paper is “The Potential Role of the Human Right to Water in the Management of Indonesia’s Water Resources”. In the paper, I argued that:
“…there are gaps in the Indonesian legal framework in securing transparency, access to information, participation, access to justice and the procedure in recognizing customary rights in water resources management. Without adequate access to these procedural rights, vulnerable, marginalized and financially weaker groups will be left out from water resources management and will not be able to secure their entitlements. The Human Right to Water has potentials for filling such gap by reforming the implementing regulation of the Water Resources Law and enhancing the possibility to obtain legal recourse”.

Colleague Hugo Tremblay reviewed this paper in his blog and commented “Reading the paper, it sometimes feels like the human right to water is constituted of a bundle of ‘substantive’ and ‘procedural’ rights (ex: see p.4 last §, as well as subsection 5.b on Right(s) to participation, transparency and access to information). Are these rights constituent human rights included under a human right to water? Are they considered as autonomous human rights? Is this an illustration of the doctrine of indivisible, inter-related and inter-dependent human rights?”

While the right to receive and impart information is recognized as a form human rights (Article 19 of the UDHR), the conflation of this right into ‘Freedom of Information’ has sometimes been contested. Although many argued that freedom of information is a human rights (see for example, this article from Toby Mendel), some skeptic may argue that the original intent of Article 19 of the UDHR is to protect free speech and not to provide specific access to governmental information.

Furthermore, the concepts of transparency, participation and access to justice is often mingled with ‘good governance’. A presentation from Susanne Schmidt of the UNDP asked a question: “Is IWRM an HRBA?” The present state of research appears to acknowledge that the two are ‘mutually reinforcing’ with the latter (HRBA) focusing on the equity aspect of governance. A joint working paper of several organisations even consider HRBA as a specific kind of ‘governance’.

I acknowledge that the concept of HRBA still needs further clarification. That, I will not deal in this post. I will reserve it for another day :)

 

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Indonesia’s Attorney General Lost its Power to Ban Books

Thursday, October 14, 2010

 

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Press Release: Indonesia’s Attorney General Lost its Power to Ban Books

The Indonesian Constitutional Court in a 7-1 ruling pronounced last Wednesday, October 13th, that the Indonesian Attorney General is stripped from its power to ban books. This ruling is an important breakthrough for the freedom of expression in Indonesia.

Last January, two lawyers from the Center for Law Information, Rahmat Bagja and Fatahillah Hoed submitted a petition to the Constitutional Court demanding the Court to revoke Law No. 4 PNPS 1963 which provides the legal basis to the Attorney General to ban books.

The lawyers successfully pleaded their case before the Constitutional Court. The Court decided in Wednesday that Law No. 4 PNPS 1963 was invalidated. In the future, banning of books will have to be conducted through a court proceeding.  

Indonesia is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and has therefore, the international obligation to protect the freedom of expression. In the past, book banning has been used by the New Order authoritarian regime to tackle political dissents.

Jakarta, October 14th, 2010

 

Center for Law Information (CeLI)

Indonesia Law Report (ILR)                                                             

 

Picture: Mr Rahmat Bagja and Mr. Fatahillah Hoed at the Constitutional Court’s Judicial Review of Law No. 4 PNPS 1963