Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
Encyclopedia
The Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (before 1999, known as the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities) was a think tank of the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights
. It was wound up in late August, 2006.
With the dissolution of the Commission on Human Rights and its replacement by the Human Rights Council in 2006, responsibility for the Sub-Commission passed from the former to the latter. On 30 June 2006 the Council resolved to extend the Sub-Commission's mandate on an exceptional one-year basis and subject to the Council's subsequent review. The Sub-Commission met for the final time in August 2006;
among the recommendations it adopted at that session was one for the creation of a human rights consultative committee as a standing body to assist the Human Rights Council.
The Sub-Commission was first formed in 1947, under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
Its primary mandate is described as:
Other functions and tasks could also be assigned to it by ECOSOC or the Commission on Human Rights.
It was composed of 26 human rights experts, each with an alternate and each elected for a term of four years, with half of the posts up for election every two years. Membership was selected from amongst the eligible candidates from United Nations member states
in such a way as to result in roughly equal and proportional representation
from each of the continent
s.
As of 2004, the breakdown of membership was:
The Sub-Commission had eight working groups, which conduct studies on discriminatory practices and make recommendations to ensure that racial, national, religious and linguistic minorities are protected by law.
(UNCHR) with a recommendation that it be given the wides possible distribution, and the UNCHR made a decision to do so.
Much of Ruhashyankiko's report was not found by the sub-committee to be controversial, for example he suggested suggested that the crime of genocide (as is piracy) should become an issue covered by universal jurisdiction, and that an international criminal court be set up to try those accused of genocide.
However in his review of historical genocide ignited a political debate, Ruhashyankiko took a conservative line arguing that it was impossible to draw up an exhaustive list, and to attempt to do so could reignite old quarrels and would not be acceptable to all of the member states of the United Nations. This drew the criticism of one member of the Sub-Commission who complained that genocide of the Palestinians had been omitted. But most of the criticism was for a change that Ruhashyankiko made between the draft of the report and the final draft. In his initial draft Ruhashyankiko included a mention of the Armenian genocide
which occurred during World War I. But he deleted it from the final version of the report due to pressure from Turkey. An omission that was supported by only two members. Ruhashyankiko justified his omission of the Armemian genocide and the inclusion of Jewish the Holocaust
, by explaining that the Holocaust was universally recognised while the Armenian genocide one was not. In the end the Sub-Commission sent the report with some amendments resulting from the debate within the Sub-Commission to the (UNCHR) with a recommendations that it should be widely distributed. The UNCHR accepted the recommendation and passed the resolution to enable its distribution.
Mitsue Inazumi draws the conclusion from the political debate that the Ruhashyankiko report started, that it was evocative of how divisive the dispute over historical genocides and alleged historical genocides are, while William Schabas draws the conclusion that Ruhashyankiko backed down in naming the Armenian massacres as a genocide under the pressure from the Turkish state, and that "Ruhashyankiko's unpardonable wavering on the Armenian genocide cast a shadow over what was otherwise an extremely helpful and well-researched report."
In 1983 due to the disagreements over the Ruhashyankiko Report the Sub-Commission asked the UNCHR to request the United Nations Economic and Social Council
(UNESC) to request that the report be revised and updated. In the same year to facilitate this request the UNESC appointed Whitaker as a new Special Rapporteur, to produce a revised and updated study.
The report was delivered in 1985. It consisted of a Forward, an Introduction, an Appendix, and four parts: Part I: Historical, Part II, Part III Future progress: Possible ways forward, and Part IV: List of conclusions. It made a number of controversial proposals including recommendations that the Genocide Convention should be altered to include protection of group based on politics and sexual orientation. Also "advertent omission" should become a crime and the defence of obeying superior orders should be removed. The report also suggested that consideration should be given to ecocide
, ethnocide and cultural genocide
.
The report created further controversy, because in paragraph 24 it stated that
In the debates over whether to accept the report the Sub-Commissions final report stated:
That opinions of the Sub-Commission were split came to the for over the wording of the resolution to accept the report. In the end the second and weaker of two proposed resolutions was adopted, one that took note of the study and thanked Whitaker for his efforts,Unlike the earlier Ruhashyankiko Report the Sub-Commission did not "approve" the Whitaker Report and also noted "that divergent opinions have been expressed about the content and proposals of the report". Schabas states that "An attempt to strengthen the resolution by expressing the Sub-Commisions's thanks and congratulations for 'some' of the proposals in the report was resoundingly defeated". The sources are somewhat split on this interpretation of the Sub-Commissions response to the Whitaker Report with some stating that the report was endorsed:
and others stating it was not:
In a resolution dated 3 August 1995 the Sub-Commission concluded "that a veritable genocide is being committed massively and in a systematic manner against the civilian population in Bosnia and Herzegovina, often in the presence of United Nations forces".
Later the same month on 18 August, the Sub-Commission passed another resolution explicitly mentioning Radio Démocratie-La Voix du Peuple, which had been stirring up genocidal hatred in Burundi
.
, or weapons with indiscriminate effect, or of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering and urged all states to curb the production and the spread of such weapons. The committee authorized a working paper, in the context of human rights
and humanitarian norms, of the weapons. The requested UN working paper was delivered in 2002 by Y.K.J. Yeung Sik Yuen in accordance with Sub-Commission's resolution 2001/36.
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Commission on Human Rights
United Nations Commission on Human Rights
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006...
. It was wound up in late August, 2006.
With the dissolution of the Commission on Human Rights and its replacement by the Human Rights Council in 2006, responsibility for the Sub-Commission passed from the former to the latter. On 30 June 2006 the Council resolved to extend the Sub-Commission's mandate on an exceptional one-year basis and subject to the Council's subsequent review. The Sub-Commission met for the final time in August 2006;
among the recommendations it adopted at that session was one for the creation of a human rights consultative committee as a standing body to assist the Human Rights Council.
The Sub-Commission was first formed in 1947, under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
Its primary mandate is described as:
- "To undertake studies, particularly in the light of the Universal Declaration of Human RightsUniversal Declaration of Human RightsThe Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...
, and to make recommendations to the Commission concerning the prevention of discriminationDiscriminationDiscrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
of any kind relating to human rightsHuman rightsHuman rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
and fundamental freedoms and the protection of racial, national, religious and linguistic minoritiesMinority languageA minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities.-International politics:...
."
Other functions and tasks could also be assigned to it by ECOSOC or the Commission on Human Rights.
It was composed of 26 human rights experts, each with an alternate and each elected for a term of four years, with half of the posts up for election every two years. Membership was selected from amongst the eligible candidates from United Nations member states
United Nations member states
There are 193 United Nations member states, and each of them is a member of the United Nations General Assembly.The criteria for admission of new members are set out in the United Nations Charter, Chapter II, Article 4, as follows:...
in such a way as to result in roughly equal and proportional representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
from each of the continent
Continent
A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents—they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.Plate tectonics is...
s.
As of 2004, the breakdown of membership was:
- 7 from AfricaAfricaAfrica is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n States, - 5 from AsiaAsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
n States, - 5 from Latin AmericaLatin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n States, - 3 from Eastern EuropeEastern EuropeEastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an States, - 6 from Western EuropeWestern EuropeWestern Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
an and other States.
The Sub-Commission had eight working groups, which conduct studies on discriminatory practices and make recommendations to ensure that racial, national, religious and linguistic minorities are protected by law.
- Working Group on Administration of Justice
- Working Group on Communication
- Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery
- Working Group on Indigenous PopulationsWorking Group on Indigenous PopulationsThe Working Group on Indigenous Populations was a subsidiary body within the structure of the United Nations. It was established in 1982, and was one of the six working groups overseen by the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, the main subsidiary body of the United...
- Working Group on Minorities
- Working Group on Social Forum
- Working Group on Transnational Corporations
- Working Group on Terrorism
Genocide
By the middle of the 1970s the Genocide Convention had not been ratified by all of the members of the security council and appeared to be moribund after 20 years of inaction. Members of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities decided to investigate the subject and over the next decade launched a number of initiatives. which included publication of the Ruhashyankiko report in 1978 and the Whitaker report in 1985.Ruhashyankiko Report
Nicodène Ruhashyankiko was appointed as a special Rapporteur in 1973 and produced a report The Study on the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocde, that was approved by the Sub-Commission at its thirty first session (E/CN.4/Sub.2/416, 4 July 1979. The report was forwarded to the United Nations Commission on Human RightsUnited Nations Commission on Human Rights
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006...
(UNCHR) with a recommendation that it be given the wides possible distribution, and the UNCHR made a decision to do so.
Much of Ruhashyankiko's report was not found by the sub-committee to be controversial, for example he suggested suggested that the crime of genocide (as is piracy) should become an issue covered by universal jurisdiction, and that an international criminal court be set up to try those accused of genocide.
However in his review of historical genocide ignited a political debate, Ruhashyankiko took a conservative line arguing that it was impossible to draw up an exhaustive list, and to attempt to do so could reignite old quarrels and would not be acceptable to all of the member states of the United Nations. This drew the criticism of one member of the Sub-Commission who complained that genocide of the Palestinians had been omitted. But most of the criticism was for a change that Ruhashyankiko made between the draft of the report and the final draft. In his initial draft Ruhashyankiko included a mention of the Armenian genocide
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...
which occurred during World War I. But he deleted it from the final version of the report due to pressure from Turkey. An omission that was supported by only two members. Ruhashyankiko justified his omission of the Armemian genocide and the inclusion of Jewish the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, by explaining that the Holocaust was universally recognised while the Armenian genocide one was not. In the end the Sub-Commission sent the report with some amendments resulting from the debate within the Sub-Commission to the (UNCHR) with a recommendations that it should be widely distributed. The UNCHR accepted the recommendation and passed the resolution to enable its distribution.
Mitsue Inazumi draws the conclusion from the political debate that the Ruhashyankiko report started, that it was evocative of how divisive the dispute over historical genocides and alleged historical genocides are, while William Schabas draws the conclusion that Ruhashyankiko backed down in naming the Armenian massacres as a genocide under the pressure from the Turkish state, and that "Ruhashyankiko's unpardonable wavering on the Armenian genocide cast a shadow over what was otherwise an extremely helpful and well-researched report."
Whitaker Report
Benjamin Whitaker was appointed as a special Rapporteur in 1983 and produced a Revised and Updated Report on the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It was noted by the Sub-Commission in a resolution at its thirty-eighth session in 1885, (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1985/6, 2 July 1985).In 1983 due to the disagreements over the Ruhashyankiko Report the Sub-Commission asked the UNCHR to request the United Nations Economic and Social Council
United Nations Economic and Social Council
The Economic and Social Council of the United Nations constitutes one of the six principal organs of the United Nations and it is responsible for the coordination of the economic, social and related work of 14 UN specialized agencies, its functional commissions and five regional commissions...
(UNESC) to request that the report be revised and updated. In the same year to facilitate this request the UNESC appointed Whitaker as a new Special Rapporteur, to produce a revised and updated study.
The report was delivered in 1985. It consisted of a Forward, an Introduction, an Appendix, and four parts: Part I: Historical, Part II, Part III Future progress: Possible ways forward, and Part IV: List of conclusions. It made a number of controversial proposals including recommendations that the Genocide Convention should be altered to include protection of group based on politics and sexual orientation. Also "advertent omission" should become a crime and the defence of obeying superior orders should be removed. The report also suggested that consideration should be given to ecocide
Ecocide
The neologism ecocide can be used to refer to any large-scale destruction of the natural environment or over-consumption of critical non-renewable resources...
, ethnocide and cultural genocide
Cultural genocide
Cultural genocide is a term that lawyer Raphael Lemkin proposed in 1933 as a component to genocide. The term was considered in the 1948 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples juxtaposed next to the term ethnocide, but it was removed in the final document, replaced with...
.
The report created further controversy, because in paragraph 24 it stated that
In the debates over whether to accept the report the Sub-Commissions final report stated:
That opinions of the Sub-Commission were split came to the for over the wording of the resolution to accept the report. In the end the second and weaker of two proposed resolutions was adopted, one that took note of the study and thanked Whitaker for his efforts,Unlike the earlier Ruhashyankiko Report the Sub-Commission did not "approve" the Whitaker Report and also noted "that divergent opinions have been expressed about the content and proposals of the report". Schabas states that "An attempt to strengthen the resolution by expressing the Sub-Commisions's thanks and congratulations for 'some' of the proposals in the report was resoundingly defeated". The sources are somewhat split on this interpretation of the Sub-Commissions response to the Whitaker Report with some stating that the report was endorsed:
and others stating it was not:
1990s
The Sub-Commission revisited genocide in 1993 and in 1994 recommended that an international court statue be prepared to facilitate the prosecution of genocide. It also recommended that an international committee be created to examine reports by States into their undertakings under Article 5 of the Genocide Convention. The committee also followed up on one of the Ruhashyankiko Reports ideas and suggested that the convention be improved by including clause enabling the crime of genocide to be tried under universal jurisdiction.In a resolution dated 3 August 1995 the Sub-Commission concluded "that a veritable genocide is being committed massively and in a systematic manner against the civilian population in Bosnia and Herzegovina, often in the presence of United Nations forces".
Later the same month on 18 August, the Sub-Commission passed another resolution explicitly mentioning Radio Démocratie-La Voix du Peuple, which had been stirring up genocidal hatred in Burundi
Burundi genocide
Since Burundi's independence in 1962, there have been two events called genocides in the country. The 1972 mass killings of Hutus by the Tutsi-dominated army, and the 1993 mass killings of Tutsis by the Hutu populace are both described as genocide in the final report of the International...
.
Human rights and weapons of mass destruction
The Sub-Commission, passed two motions — the first in 1996 and the second in 1997. They listed weapons of mass destructionWeapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction is a weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general...
, or weapons with indiscriminate effect, or of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering and urged all states to curb the production and the spread of such weapons. The committee authorized a working paper, in the context of human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
and humanitarian norms, of the weapons. The requested UN working paper was delivered in 2002 by Y.K.J. Yeung Sik Yuen in accordance with Sub-Commission's resolution 2001/36.
Further reading
- Shabtai, Rosenne; et al.. International law at a time of perplexity,Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1989, ISBN 9024736544, 9789024736546. p. 813 (A review of some of the complexity of the laws on genocide which the two reports looked into).
External links
- Site archive
- Leaflet on the Sub-Commission
- UN site for Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights while under the aegis of the Commission on Human Rights.
- UN site for Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights while under the aegis of the Human Rights Council.