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Call for Pacific mechanism for human rights

1 May 2008

Experts at Samoa meeting support education and advocacy efforts

Delegates at a human rights conference in Samoa have proposed the establishment of a regional mechanism for human rights in the Pacific to promote education and advocacy.

Civil society representatives and academics who had attended the three-day conference in the capital, Apia, from 27 to 29 April 2008, titled 'Strategies for the Future: Protecting Rights in the Pacific', said this regional mechanism will fill the gaps in Pacific countries that do not have a national human rights institution or active civil society involvement.

Dr Purna Sen, Head of the Human Rights Unit of the Commonwealth Secretariat, explained that the recommendations of the delegates are useful in helping to tailor Commonwealth development assistance to the Pacific region.

“The outcomes of the meeting will enable the Human Rights Unit to draw up strategies critical to further human rights in the region,” she stated.

The conference, sponsored by the Secretariat together with the Foreign Office of Germany, was organised by the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights, more commonly known as Interights, and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. It brought together 50 human rights experts and activists from around the globe to examine human rights challenges in the Pacific, and identified measures to strengthen national, regional and international measures to improve the protection of human rights.

The delegates looked at issues including environmental rights, customary laws and women's rights, HIV and poverty. They also discussed the development of a regional mechanism for the Pacific to enhance rights protection, and reviewed the work of such mechanisms elsewhere in the world. The difficulties faced by small states and civil society groups provided an important framework for discussions. The impacts on the Pacific Plan, which is a blueprint for socio-economic development of the Pacific region, were examined.

The speakers included the Secretary-General of the Association for the Prevention of Torture, Mark Thompson; Justice Susan Glazebrook, Court of Appeal, New Zealand; and representatives from the Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute, the Pacific Regional Rights Resource Team, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.