Seven key conclusions/messages

Dear colleagues,

Many thanks for initiating this interesting and useful discussion series. Based on my past experience as the Human Rights Development Officer for the RC system and UNDP Uzbekistan I would like to share with you thoughts and experiences in, inter alia, supporting/coordinating the follow-up actions taken by the UNRC/UNDP (on behalf of the international community) to support the implementation of the recommendations of the former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Mr. Theo Van Boven. Through this response, I will try and address some of the questions posed under Parts 2 & 3 of the discussion series.

Note: this response is solely meant to bring attention to the seven key conclusions/messages (clustered under 4 themes), and should not in any way be used beyond the overall objectives and purposes of this e-discussion. Also, this experience should be treated independently off what may or may not have happened in the country since my departure in February 2005.
 
Seven key conclusions/messages:

1) Joint Advocacy/Partnership:

· The international community [including the UN(DP)] can, through adopting strategic advocacy strategies and forming coalitions with all relevant partners, raise human rights issues and concerns with the respective governments and maintain the trusted partnership. Joint advocacy could prove to be a powerful tool to address issues that are often classified as “politically sensitive”. 

· Success of the work of Special Procedures will, to a great extent, also depend on the level and extent of cooperation that s/he gets at all stages (before, during, and after country visits), particularly from OHCHR, UNCTs/Agencies, interested bi-lateral partners and international NGOs. Unless and until all these stakeholders join forces and demonstrate their commitments to the cause, it is highly likely that the mission reports will be shelved.

· The OHCHR should demonstrate, particularly to the RCs, that it is serious about follow-up actions (even if financial support may not be possible) on the ground and that its request for support from the UN at the country level goes beyond “logistics”.

2) Senior Managers’ Commitment:

· Any serious follow up actions would require senior managers’ fullest commitment and support, in addition to the needed in-house capacity. For the then RC/RR in Uzbekistan (late Mr. Richard Conroy) this was his top priority (Note: he also went on to familiarize himself with the work of the human rights machinery!). Unfortunately, he died just 2 months before the adoption of the National Action Plan. However, and given the fact he had also involved the then DRR from the very beginning of the follow-up process, the WG received the required leadership to keep up the momentum until the new RCs arrived.

3) Exploit the opportunities/get the maximum:

· UNDP CO managed to capitalise on the visit and find its human rights/civil society/rule of law programming entry points in the country, in addition to strengthening its partnership with the governmental institutions and donor community. The CO also reached out to the international NGOs (such as Freedom House, the American Bar Association/Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA/CEELI), Open Society Institute, and Human Rights Watch etc) and local NGOs (both registered and non-registered). In 2004, UNDP and Freedom House also signed a MoU to corporate in the area of democratic governance, civil society and human rights protection, including in supporting the implementation of the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur!! 

4) Acknowledge government efforts and be realistic:

· The visit and the subsequent follow-up encouraged the government to open its doors for dialogue, take some small steps towards legal reform, forge/strengthen partnership with the donor community and take steps towards understanding the concerns of some human rights defenders. This was also demonstrated by the government opening itself up to the visit of the then UN Independent Expert on Uzbekistan (under “1503” confidential procedure); and other initiatives such as bi-lateral meetings between the officials from the main investigation and penitentiary departments, and National Security Service with a few human rights defenders, in the presence of the international community, to improve dialogue between the two (Note: this also resulted in the first ever joint (govt./human rights defenders) study tour to Slovenia to learn from its experience in integrating human rights into the work of the law enforcement agencies).

· We should be realistic about what can be achieved in countries with very sensitive, complex, challenging, and changing political environments. Even if the Action Plans/National Strategies are not up to the so-called “international standards” (for which we all should be striving hard), and given the fact there is no “one size fits all” formula, nor sufficient evidence- to show that “this plan/strategy has actually succeeded in country x”, governments’ positive initiatives should be acknowledged and dialogues be continued, however time consuming, frustrating and at times disappointing it may be. Continuous dialogue, without compromising on certain principles/values, may provide room to address drawbacks (or the “grey areas”) in the Plans and strategies, as one goes along with the implementation.  

Some detailed response:

1. What have been the experiences of UN agencies and UNCTs in engaging with Special Procedures?
Further to the widespread allegations of torture, and at the invitation of the Government of Uzbekistan, the former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture visited Uzbekistan in December 2002. UNDP provided all the required support to facilitate the mission. In March 2003 the Government, whilst contesting some findings of the Report (which is common in many parts of the world, either rightly or wrongly), stated that it was ready for co-operation with the international community to implement the recommendations. Further to this invitation for cooperation, the donor community requested UNRC to coordinate the efforts of the international community. They also endorsed a Donor Working Group, led by RC/UNDP to draft a joint position paper on supporting implementation and to define appropriate advocacy strategies. While the ICRC and European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) were present as observers, the ABA/CEELI, Freedom House and Human Rights Watch became full members of the WG, whose inclusion was agreed upon at the request of the RC.

At a meeting held between Ambassadors and high-level government officials in April 2003, led by the RC, the government agreed to develop an Action Plan to implement the recommendations. As the international community had already formed an alliance and developed its joint position, it was very easy to engage with the governmental focal point agency without losing much time.  During the drafting stages of the Plan, the WG also advocated for the approval of the Plan at the highest level as well as the establishment of a mechanism to coordinate the implementation and monitoring of the Action Plan.

The Prime Minister approved the Plan in March 2004, which contained many concrete activities (including many of those proposed by the WG), information on governmental institutions responsible for implementation (without necessarily identifying the lead institution), expected outcomes and timeframes, types of technical assistance, and international organizations and foreign embassies providing technical assistance. However, and as with other National Plans developed in many countries, this Plan did not contain any budget allocation from the government side. The government also established an Inter-departmental Working Group, chaired by the Minister of Justice, for monitoring and coordination of all human rights initiatives including implementation of the Plan.

As there was a great interest in supporting the implementations, the WG developed a joint workplan aimed at supporting the implementation of the recommendations (excluding those that did not require either financial or technical support but mere policy statements/decisions from the government side), with a clear division of labour. The OSCE’s monthly information sharing meeting, to which all the international organisations and diplomatic missions were invited, also had an agenda item on the Plan of Action/Implementing the recommendations and the status update provided by the government was also discussed.

Key strategies:

A) The RC ensured the participation of all concerned international community from the very beginning, both at the Ambassadorial and working levels. Given the convener/facilitator role of the RC/UNDP in this context, it was agreed that we would communicate and lead only on areas where ALL the members had full consent and that any different views aired/pushed from different capitals, from bilateral cooperation perspectives, should be communicated directly to the government counterpart(s) by the respective missions and organisations.

B) In addition to the RC sending the joint position paper(s) and letters to the government, it was also agreed that each of us would send our own very detailed position directly to the government at different intervals.  It was also agreed to share the respective positions among us so that everybody was clear about what others were communicating.

C) Relevant UN and non-UN high-level missions to the country also met with the WG.

D) Outside the WG framework, some managed to ensure that the implementation of the recommendations was one of the six must-do elements of EBRD’s funding strategy for Uzbekistan, in addition to ensuring that the issue was raised at every high-level OSCE meetings.

Our experience with OHCHR:

We received the ToRs for the missions well in advance, and this gave us sufficient time to review them carefully, seek clarification, and brief the relevant donors. This greatly helped us engage in consultations with the relevant people to identify the most appropriate places for field visits and also to put together non-official programmes, covering meetings with the non-registered NGOs.

There were constant flow of emails and phone calls from OHCHR, before, during and after the mission, which demonstrated that the Office was serious about follow-up. On a regular basis, the RC also kept the then Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights (Mr. Bertrand Ramcharan) informed of the developments. Mr. Ramcharan’s visit to the country also boosted the Office’s commitment towards follow-up and support to the RC. We also shared the draft versions of the Plan with OHCHR for its expert inputs. 

2) How have UN agencies and UNCTs been able to provide support to national efforts (by governments and civil society) to work towards implementation of recommendations of treaty bodies and special procedures?

The Report of the Special Rapporteur contained 22 specific recommendations, focusing on a wide range of issues including those relating to legal and judicial reforms, legal and judicial safeguards for detainees, establishing effective procedures for internal monitoring and investigation, technical assistance and capacity development support etc. Despite the sensitivity of the topic, UNDP’s focus was firmly about assisting the government to put in place the necessary means that would contribute to torture prevention, by identifying certain recommendations that fell within its mandate and providing relevant advice, sharing of knowledge and experience, technical support and capacity development against those recommendations. (FYI: the WHO office in Tashkent was interested in supporting one of the recommendations that focused on medical doctors/forensic experts/independent medical reports etc. If I am not mistaken, the Office was also in contact with the Penal Reform International for some partnership)

In this regard, and within (and beyond) the framework of the Action Plan/joint donor workplan, UNDP formally committed to contribute to the implementation of around 10 recommendations, either individually or collectively, by developing an Umbrella Human Rights Programme (3 years; with core and non-core resources) and two human rights civil society capacity building projects. All three projects were Directly Executed. The reason why I mentioned “beyond” was that the programme also focussed on supporting the implementation of some of the treaty-body recommendations. 
 
A few words about the civil society projects: During the drafting of the Plan, and due to UNDP’s advocacy, the national counterpart responsible for the Plan invited human rights CSOs (including non-registered) to attend the consultations and provide concrete recommendations on the types of activities that the government should undertake, against each recommendation, and to identify their potential roles during implementation. Although the OSCE, Freedom House and Human Rights Watch convened separate meetings for the local NGOs, in order for them to be able to respond to the request, the feedback provided by those local NGOs to this coordinating body was neither constructive nor demonstrated their ability to be engaged in a constructive dialogue with the relevant departments, especially during the implementation, monitoring and evaluation stages of the Plan.

Hence, the projects, after consultative meetings with the CSOs (both registered and non-registered), focused at promoting a dialogue with the relevant governmental institutions and building the capacity of the CSOs on fact-finding, investigation, monitoring, documentation, effective report writing, and as well as developing/enhancing their advocacy and communication skills, against some of the tasks that they were supposed to perform under the Plan. The Freedom House Office in Tashkent and the Geneva-based HURIDOCS NGO became the main partners in this project. Small grants were also provided to promote joint govt./CSO initiatives.

3. Using recommendations in UN country programme design:  

The 2003 CCA, UNDAF (2005-2009), and UNDP’s Country Programme Document (2005-2009) offer ample evidence to demonstrate how development programming can be better influenced by engaging with and using the recommendations of the Special Procedures and UN Treaty Bodies.  Let me cite some examples:

CCA 2003: Under the section on Governance (as one of the challenges of transition), the human rights component totally relied on the concluding observations of the UN Committee against Torture (28th session, 2002) and as well as the Report of the Special Rapporteur on Torture. The section also went on to refer to the fact that the Special Rapporteur had found torture to be “systematic” in Uzbekistan. 

UNDAF (2005-2009):

Priority Area 4: Harmonisation of National Laws and Regulations in Accordance with International Conventions

UNDAF Outcome: “By 2009, domestic laws are harmonized with UN legal instruments, including human rights, environmental and refugee conventions, and the implementation and monitoring of the latter are improved”.

Country Outcome (4.1): National legislation is in compliance with selected international conventions, including human rights and environmental conventions and improved legal protection for refugees.
Country Outcome (4.2): Enhanced legal framework, monitoring and support mechanisms are in place for the implementation of UN human rights instruments.

Priority Area 5: Good Governance

UNDAF Outcome:  “Strengthened government and civil society capacity and partnership towards more effective governance”.

Country Outcome (5.1): “Enabling environment for civil society to participate in development processes”

UNDP Country Programme (2005-2009): "Democratic Governance" was identified as one of the major components of UNDP's Country Programme 2005-2009. In order to further develop the human rights aspects of this Programme, UNDP commissioned a two-week independent human rights fact-finding and strategy formulation mission (October/November 2004), through the Irish-based organization called “Human Rights Consultants”. The goal of the mission was to assist UNDP to “find the relevant niche” and to formulate its programme strategy in consultation with relevant partners and stakeholders among government, civil society and the donor community.

The section on Human Rights in the Country Programme states that “Human rights will be addressed by building the national capacity to integrate international human rights obligations into the national legal framework, raising awareness on international human rights principles, and enhancing the population’s access to justice. In particular, efforts will focus in strengthening capacities to implement and monitor the national action plan to combat torture and the elaboration of other national strategies to promote and protect human rights, including women’s rights. This will include improving cooperation between civil society and the government in monitoring human rights initiatives”(para. 29). Within the above UNDAF Outcomes, UNDP was able to formulate its relevant Country Programme Outputs.

I hope the above and the already shared experiences will provide some useful insights and lessons on how to move forward on the agenda, particularly in light of the 2005 UNDP Human Rights Practice Note ("Human Rights in UNDP") that has called for a “Greater Engagement with the International Human Rights Machinery”.

Best regards and apologies for the lengthy response.

Zanofer


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Zanofer Ismalebbe
Human Rights Focal Point
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
11-13 Chemin des Anémones, Chàtelaine
CH-1219 Geneva, Switzerland.