Opening ceremony, Commonwealth Forum of National Human Rights Institutions, NHRIs

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and congratulations on this, the first ever meeting of the Commonwealth Forum of National Human Rights Institutions.

You have met before, of course – in Ottawa in 1992, in Cambridge in 2000, and in London earlier this year – but today is your first time together in this newly constituted Forum.

I believe that you will become a dynamic and effective body, and I hope that this meeting will push you further along that path.

It is my very great pleasure to address you today, on a subject that is absolutely central to what I have tried to achieve as Commonwealth Secretary-General these last 8 years.

Human rights lends itself to rhetoric, but we in the Commonwealth are grounded in reality: we say what we mean, and we act on it too.

Some of you may have heard of a remarkable lady called Mukhtar Mai, a woman from the southern Punjabi village of Meerwala in Pakistan.

Five years ago, the reality for her was when she was gang-raped by 14 men on the orders of her local village council, as a punishment for her brother’s alleged adultery.

In 2005, the Supreme Court suspended the acquittal of the men, and ordered a retrial.

Mukhtar Mai now campaigns for the protection of human rights for all, especially in seeking justice for women in Pakistan. And her response is rhetoric based on reality.

She quotes Urdu poetry when she says that: "Silence in the wake of injustice is no less than the injustice itself."

We are called to speak out and act about human rights.

As NHRIs, you must do so dispassionately, independently, thoroughly – but at heart there must be passion in what you do, because the basic rights to a vote, to a fair trial, to an education are just that: they are fundamental human rights.

And however many good things we are doing on human rights in the Commonwealth, the fact is that any abuse anywhere is unacceptable.

At the political level, our Commonwealth members still fall short when it comes to subscribing to the basic creeds of Human Rights.

19 of them have yet to ratify the two 1966 UN Covenants, on Civil and Political Rights, and Social and Economic Rights.

20 have yet to ratify the Convention against Torture, while 9 have not yet ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

And at the level of everyday life, we see what is happening in many corners of the Commonwealth.

Let me make it clear that we could point fingers at just about every Commonwealth country, and show instances of the same things happening, to a greater or lesser extent.

Only a few weeks ago, Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare said that he was ashamed at the high level of domestic violence in his country. In Pakistan’s Provisional Constitutional order of 3^rd November, various of the fundamental rights under the Constitution were suspended.

The list of countries and human rights deficiencies goes on.

That is why our response to human rights challenges all over the Commonwealth has been so determined.

We are, after all, a human rights organisation.

It was the Commonwealth, which by its shared history and public commitment to human rights, helped to consign apartheid to history in South Africa.

It is the Commonwealth which continues to act wherever it sees serious and systematic violation of its shared values.

Remember, for instance, that Fiji was suspended for the unjustifiable overthrow of a democratically elected government, last December.

I believe that the Commonwealth has not just matched international commitments to human rights but tried hard to set the bar even higher – to say that we expect a greater commitment, and higher standards.

The Commonwealth capacity to suspend members is perhaps the most visible way in which we can show how serious we are about this.

Suspension is a high price.

And it was certainly sad and difficult for us all to see Zimbabwe go beyond suspension to withdraw itself from the Commonwealth in 2003.

Since then, we have continued to encourage people-to-people links.

Those links are very important.

I certainly want the Commonwealth's people-to-people links with Zimbabwe to continue.

But engagement with the government is another matter.

Zimbabwe's Government has said that it doesn't see value in belonging, that the Commonwealth has nothing to offer, and they have not accepted our approaches in recent years - or the approaches of many others for that matter.

I have to respect that decision even if I don't agree with it: that’s their sovereign right.

What it means is that we leave our options open.

The Commonwealth's door will always be open and welcoming to Zimbabwe's return.

Meanwhile, the best we can do is to encourage the SADC process, led by President Mbeki.

Commonwealth governments in the region are involved in that process, and they wouldn't thank me if we did anything but support it.

When I took office, I said that human rights would be one of the cornerstones on which I would build my commitment to the Commonwealth.

One of the first things I did was to set up a Human Rights Unit in the Commonwealth Secretariat.

This was done to ensure that human rights were reflected better in all the programmes and policies of the organization, and also to better help our member countries to implement their human rights commitments.

We have carried out this work in two main ways.

The first is to encourage members to subscribe to those fundamental statements of belief and commitment to action, as found in international legal treaties that I mentioned earlier.

We found that very few of our members actively rejected them.

Instead, they simply haven’t prioritized them, in their concern about their own lack of expertise in being able to implement obligations created by them, or their lack of capacity to report on them.

So the support that we have given to countries like The Maldives, Antigua & Barbuda, Mozambique and Papua New Guinea has been practical assistance over the small print: not so much on the spirit of the law, as on its letter.

Last year, we produced a Handbook to help countries ratify those various Conventions.

Second, we give practical training on human rights – what they mean, and how to apply them.

Over the last two years we have given human rights training to police forces in some 25 countries across three continents.

We produced an accompanying manual on the subject.

And where we ‘train trainers’, as well, we have the potential to reach entire police forces – for instance The Maldives has committed to taking our training to all of its officers.

As well as training police officers, we train students.

At the University of Maharashtra in Mumbai, for instance, over 250 young people are being trained using our Commonwealth human rights training model, which is now part of the curriculum.

I am as proud of this work, as I am glad that we take nothing for granted.

It’s why I welcome the fact that the presence of 13 Commonwealth countries on the new 47-member UN Human Rights Council – which I addressed in Geneva in March – means that they, and all of us, have to merit scrutiny.

That’s why I have always welcomed organisations like the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative as an independent, pan-Commonwealth organisation striving to hold institutions, individuals and countries to account.

Indeed the CHRI’s latest report looks at the 13 and how they perform on human rights, especially in the areas of policing and counter-terrorism.

And so to you, the National Human Rights Institutions.

We have assisted in the establishment of some of you, notably in Cameroon and The Maldives.

In Swaziland, we’re assisting with setting up a new human rights body, while we are entering into discussions with Papua New Guinea.

I cannot overemphasise the importance of your role in promoting public awareness about human rights, and protecting your citizens’ rights.

You observe, you educate, you represent, you defend.

You act as a national conduit for international best practice.

You push to ensure that national bodies of law are consistent with international human rights standards, especially in the way they protect vulnerable groups, such as women and minorities.

And you should be doing all this from a position of independence, with freedom to speak.

There are some 60 of you now, in 20 Commonwealth countries.

Some are weak; none are perfect; all could do with more resources and support; but what matters is that most are highly effective.

In the past, I have commended the Human Rights Commissions of Kenya, Sierra Leone and South Africa which have made some provisions for themselves which in fact go beyond the threshold set by the Paris Principles.

Our host today, the Ugandan Human Rights Commission, has quasi-judicial powers and can order compensation.

The Indian National Human Rights Commission is doing good work in educating people like magistrates, police officers and NGOs on the implementation of the Indian Human Rights Act.

The New Zealand Human Rights Commission was the driving force behind my home country’s National Action Plan for Human Rights.

We will continue to work with you.

We have already produced a Best Practice Handbook: a definitive guide to setting up NHRIs, staffing them, defining their mandates and practical roles, and ensuring that they are accountable and accessible.

Today, I am pleased to launch the first of two new publications which can inform and strengthen your work.

Here it is: ‘A Comparative Study on Mandates of National Human Rights Institutions in the Commonwealth’.

We have produced this at your request, and perhaps it’s no surprise that it finds quite differing mandates, structures, functions and levels of independence amongst our NHRIs.

In that respect your network of NHRIs might be seen as a microcosm of the Commonwealth: you are coherent in your values; and you are consistent, yet distinct in the way you go about applying them.

It’s another case of valuing unity while celebrating diversity.

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Forum and the wider Commonwealth share a commitment to certain values and principles.

Fundamental human rights are part of the cement that binds us.

Human rights are as universal as they are indivisible, and it’s our Commonwealth task to ensure that they are kept that way.

I wish you well in your discussions and in your ongoing work.

The Commonwealth Secretariat continues to offer you our support.

Thank you.