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The Roles of Parliament in the Implementation of Human Rights Treaties in South Africa

The Roles of Parliament in the Implementation of Human Rights Treaties in South Africa. Presentation to the Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation 9 May 2012. Distinguishing between Treaties and Human Rights Treaties.

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The Roles of Parliament in the Implementation of Human Rights Treaties in South Africa

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  1. The Roles of Parliament in the Implementation of Human Rights Treaties in South Africa Presentation to the Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation 9 May 2012

  2. Distinguishing between Treaties and Human Rights Treaties • Treaties are often agreements between states regulating specific issues and only enforceable by states parties • Human Rights treaties, though ratified by states, can be invoked by individuals to seek redress before regional or international human rights bodies. • While most treaties do not require a state to submit reports on progress made, human rights treaties require states parties to submit periodic reports on progress made so far regarding a particular treaty.

  3. What are human rights? • Human rights are fundamental rights that everyone is endowed with by virtue of his/her humanity. Human rights have the following characteristics • Inalienability • Universality • Indivisibility • Interdependence • Interrelatedness

  4. Nature of International/Regional Human Rights Treaties • Human Rights treaties/instruments seek to protect and promote human rights of all individuals regardless of their nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation, class, religion, political affiliations or other status • Sometimes they deal with specific groups or categories of people (women, children and migrant workers) • They impose obligations on states to take adequate steps and measures so as to ensure the protection of individuals’ rights • They provide individuals with the avenues or means of redressing violations of human rights

  5. UN Human Rights Treaties • The following are some of the human rights treaties/instruments important to South Africa • International • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (ratified 10 December 1998) • International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR) (signed, but not ratified, 3 October 1994) • Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) ( ratified 16 June 1995) • Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) (ratified 15 December 1995) • International Convention on Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) (ratified 10 December 1998) • Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (ratified 30 November 2007) • Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) (ratified 10 December 1998)

  6. Regional Human Rights treaties/instruments cont. • African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter) (ratified 9 June 1996) • African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (African Children’s Charter) (ratified 7 January 2000) • Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ratified 3 June 2002) • Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women (African Women Protocol) (ratified 17 December 2004)

  7. Human rights treaties to be ratified by South Africa • International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR) signed 1994 • A 2007 report by the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces Parliament of South Africa, Joint Coordinating Committee on the African Peer Review Mechanism, however, countered that there “is no apparent reason for the country’s failure to ratify the Covenant because it imposes no greater duties than the Constitution.” • Current campaign to ratify • Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights • Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) • International Convention on the Protection of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (ICRMW) • International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPED) • 3rd Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child

  8. Monitoring of Human Rights treaties/instruments • Each of these human rights treaties/instruments has a monitoring/supervisory body, which examines States Party reports, issues General Comments/Recommendations/Guidelines and sometimes receives individual communications • Some of these include; • Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - Human Rights Committee • Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights- Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights • Convention on the Rights of the Child- Committee on the CRC • Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women- CEDAW Committee • Convention on Persons with Disabilities-Committee on UNCRPD • Convention against Torture-Committee against Torture • African Charter-African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights • African Women’s Protocol –African Commission/African Court on Human Rights • African Children’s Charter- Aftican Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child

  9. South Africa’s reporting obligations to treaty monitoring bodies • South Africa is under the obligation to report to treaty monitoring bodies on the steps it has taken to ensure the implementations of the provisions of different treaties it has ratified. • In return, the treaty monitoring bodies are expected to issue what is known as ‘concluding observations’ on such reports. • So far South Africa has submitted reports to the following bodies:

  10. South Africa’s reporting to treaty monitoring bodies (cont.)

  11. South Africa’s reporting to treaty monitoring bodies (cont.)

  12. South Africa’s reporting to treaty monitoring bodies (cont.)

  13. Parliament’s roles in implementing human rights treaties • Encourage ratification of treaties yet to be ratified such as • ICESCR – economic social and cultural rights • OP-CESCR – Communications procedure • OPCAT – establishment of national preventative mechanism (NPM) • ICRMW – Migrant workers and their families • ICPED - Enforced Disappearance, victims can be family members • OP3-CRC – Communications procedure

  14. Parliament’s roles (cont.) • Using international human rights standards and principles (General Comments/Recommendations and Concluding Observations) as benchmarks in drafting laws or scrutinizing legislative proposals (Finland and United Kingdom) • Through ensuring public participation in law making, parliament is not only fulfilling constitutional mandate but also promoting human rights • Using its law making powers to Increase awareness about Treaty Monitoring Bodies • Requesting Department of International Affairs and Co-operation and responsible government departments to keep the committee up to date on the status of SA’s reporting obligations

  15. Parliament's roles cont. • Facilitating the domestication of human rights treaties in SA. • Publicizing and awareness raising domestically about the proceedings before the Treaty Body and the concluding observations and recommendations. • Monitoring the implementation by government of Concluding Observations issued by treaty monitoring bodies

  16. Thank You!

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