ASIA: Arbitrary Detention Continues with Denial of Access to Justice and Increases Poverty

An Oral Statement to the 47th Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council from the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) Madam President: The report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention focusing on drug policies sheds lights on the darker sides of the justice mechanisms of many States. It also indicates the attitudes of the legislatures towards the citizens lacking compassion and comprehensive programmes to address the holistic impacts involving drugs. The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) wants to emphasise that arbitrary detention without any credible system of accountability of the law-enforcement agencies is one of the core human rights violations across Asia. There are complicities among the three […]

ASIA: Extrajudicial Executions with Impunity Require Access to International Justice

An Oral Statement to the 47th Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council from the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) ASIA: Extrajudicial Executions with Impunity Require Access to International Justice Madam President: The report on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions by the immediate past Special Rapporteur Ms. Agnes Callamard has comprehensively expanded the area of normative principles with significant observations to the discourse on arbitrary deprivation of life. The former Rapporteur’s observations on ‘the relationships between the economic, social and/or cultural dimensions of arbitrary killings and unlawful deaths’ deserve urgent attention. In many Asian countries, arbitrary deprivation of life is adopted as the way of law-enforcement. The ALRC appreciates […]

ASIA: Flawed Justice Systems Turns to be More Inaccessible for Litigants During Pandemic

An Oral Statement to the 47th Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council from the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) ASIA: Flawed Justice Systems Turns to be More Inaccessible for Litigants During Pandemic Madam President The report of the Special Rapporteur has comprehensively focused on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to justice, guaranteeing the right to fair trial, administration of justice as well as protection of the professionals involved. The ALRC draws the attention of the Special Rapporteur to the reality that during the pre-pandemic era the justice mechanisms in Asia has been mostly dysfunctional. The authorities in most Asian countries have systematically denied universal access […]

ASIA: Human Rights Mechanisms need practical actions on domestic institutional developments for administration of justice

An Oral Statement to the 42nd Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council by the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) ASIA: Human Rights Mechanisms need practical actions on domestic institutional developments for administration of justice Mr. President. The effectiveness of the United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms for protection of rights depends very much on the compliance of the State parties to implement Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This postulates the legislative, judicial, and administrative measures to ensure the rights that the State parties have signed to. While the ratification of the UN treaties has become a way of acquiring international respectability the […]

ASIA: Actual protection of indigenous people within the framework of SDG Goal 16

An Oral Statement to the 42nd Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council by the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) ASIA: Actual protection of indigenous people within the framework of SDG Goal 16 Mr. Vice President. The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) thanks the both mandates for their reports. We wish to emphasise on greater protection of the indigenous people in the countries of Asia and the world. The ALRC fully agrees with the Special Rapporteur and wishes to highlight the obligations arising from the Goal 16 of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2030. Like the protection of every other human person and communities the indigenous people also […]

BANGLADESH: Claim of economic growth without protection of human rights is a fallacy

An Oral Statement to the 42nd Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council by the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) BANGLADESH: Claim of economic growth without protection of human rights is a fallacy Madam Vice President. The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) wishes this Council to address some questions relating to enforcement of human rights, comprehensively. The issue of a State, which ratifies the United Nations’ treaties and allows its law-enforcement agencies to commit gross human rights violations with impunity, deserves serious attention of the Council. From January 2009 to 9th September 2019, the ALRC documented 536 cases of enforced disappearances; 2188 extrajudicial executions; 128 custodial deaths due to […]

MYANMAR/BANGLADESH: Rights, dignity, and future of genocide survivors at stake

A Joint Oral Statement to the 42nd Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council by the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) and Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada (LWRC) Mr. President, The Asian Legal Resource Centre and Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada thank the Special Rapporteur for her oral update. The Council is well aware of the grave human rights violations in Myanmar perpetrated by the Tatmadaw and other state- and non-state actors. Reports of the Special Rapporteur and the two other international mandates reiterate the international crimes against Rohingya, and violence against ethnic minorities in Shan, Kachin, and Karen states. Without effective international accountability, impunity continues. We join the calls to […]