Human rights and the UN system

	A speaker at a counter-terrorism workshop in Malaysia in 2004

In order to share best practice, take advantage of institutional experience and complement other human rights work, the Secretariat liaises with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), as well as regional forums such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

The Commonwealth has a special strategic relationship with the UNHCHR dating back to a 1998 Memorandum of Understanding on Co-operation. The Secretariat contributed to a UNHCHR consultation on the work of regional organisations in ensuring that counter-terrorism measures are compliant with basic human rights standards.

In June 2005 the Commonwealth Secretary-General met with the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights with a view to enhancing co-operation, particularly in bringing a people-focused, rights-based approach to programmes for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The Secretariat has been urging ratification of the major UN human rights conventions and assisting with drafting implementing legislation. Countries requiring assistance with drafting and implementing counter-terrorism legislation benefit from the insights that a rights-based approach can bring to ensuring a balance is maintained between basic freedoms and public safety.

The Secretariat has a role in the establishment of the African Court of Human Rights, including promoting the ratification of the protocol establishing the Court among Commonwealth countries in Africa. With the requisite ratifications obtained, the Secretariat, together with the Foundation for Human Rights, organised a meeting in Kenya in April 2005 to examine the establishment of the court, particularly in view of the African Union’s decision to merge the court with the court of justice.
As part of its gender and human rights work, the Secretariat is represented on the UN Task Force on Indigenous Women, and participated in the 61st Session of the UN Human Rights Commission and the 4th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Networking for human rights

	The Commonwealth provided training in human rights for police trainers from five West African countries in Abuja, Nigeria, in July 2005

The Secretariat works to strengthen the capacity of national human rights institutions to operate confidently, competently and independently. It also seeks to create an interface and functioning networks between and among government institutions and local human rights organisations, to promote a positive and mutually reinforcing relationship and highlight their complementary roles in ensuring respect for human rights.

A workshop for human rights defenders in Africa was held in Kenya in September 2004. It was the third in a series, the first taking place in 2003 in Sri Lanka for the Asian region, the second in Jamaica, for the Caribbean region, in 2004. The workshops acknowledge the role of civil society organisations, professions, unions and individuals, together with national human rights institutions, in ensuring the reality of the Commonwealth’s principles of open, accountable, responsive and rights-based societies.

Capacity-building has been provided to national human rights institutions to enable them to carry out their mandates. For example, the Cameroon Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms received assistance in drafting new legislation to replace the presidential decree under which it was founded in 2003.

The Secretariat has worked to develop ‘best practice’ standards and guidelines on human rights issues, often by convening expert groups drawn from governments, civil society and international organisations. For example, an expert group meeting discussed steps that could be taken in the Commonwealth to address more effectively the problems of mass internal displacement.

The Commonwealth Best Practice Guidelines on the Establishment of National Human Rights Institutions have been used in project work, including by the UN, to strengthen the institutional capacity of human rights commissions, and other bodies, to protect individuals and groups. The Secretariat is also working with the Government of Solomon Islands on the establishment of a human rights commission based on these guidelines, in collaboration with the Pacific Islands Forum, drawing on the experience and models of other transitional countries.

Awareness and education about basic human rights protections and about the entitlement to participate in and benefit from national development is of great importance to the Commonwealth. The Secretariat conducted a training workshop in India in April 2004 for youth tutors from five member countries in South Asia on teaching human rights within the ‘Youth in Development’ diploma programme of the Commonwealth Youth Programme (CYP). A similar collaborative training programme was carried out for Africa at the CYP Regional Centre in Zambia.

Following a consultative meeting in The Gambia in 2004 involving senior law enforcement officials from West Africa, the Secretariat developed a human rights training manual for police training schools and academies in West Africa. By April 2005 this had been adopted by all Commonwealth countries in West Africa.

In collaboration with the Commonwealth Legal Education Association, the Secretariat oversaw the development and launch in 2005 of country-specific Commonwealth model human rights orientation, certificate, diploma and degree-component courses. Four Indian universities piloting these courses have entered into arrangements for Commonwealth endorsement of courses based on the model criteria.
The importance of promoting human rights is reflected in the placement of a free-standing Human Rights Unit within the Secretariat, reporting directly to the relevant Deputy Secretary-General. In the past two years, the Unit has undertaken a major review of the applicability of human rights standards in Secretariat project activities, with a view to identifying how human rights principles and practice can be ‘mainstreamed’ across all divisional programmes.

The Secretariat has produced such publications as Unconstitutional Overthrow of Governments: Emerging Trends in the Commonwealth; Introduction to Law and Human Rights for Young Persons; Introduction to Citizenship for Young Persons in the Commonwealth; and Best Practice for Commonwealth Countries on Freedom of Association, Assembly and Expression. In collaboration with Interights, a UK-based international human rights NGO, human rights cases from across the Commonwealth are now to be published on a biannual basis.