Archives: Resources

UN Women

Authors/editor(s): Aisling Swaine and Catherine O’Rourke

The CEDAW Committee’s General recommendation no. 30 on women in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations is a landmark document giving authoritative guidance to countries that have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on concrete measures to ensure women’s human rights are protected before, during and after conflict. The general recommendation makes clear that the Convention applies in all forms of conflict and post-conflict settings and addresses crucial issues facing women in these settings, including violence and challenges in access to justice and education, employment and health. It gives guidance on States parties’ obligation of due diligence in respect of crimes against women by non-State actors. The general recommendation affirms CEDAW’s linkages with the Security Council’s women, peace and security agenda.

The purpose of this Guidebook is to increase knowledge about general recommendation no. 30 and the Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security, and how these frameworks can be used to strengthen and reinforce each other. The Guidebook provides information on the content of the general recommendation and the Security Council resolutions and on the reporting and monitoring mechanisms. It includes a checklist for States parties reporting to the CEDAW Committee and also provides some examples of where the general recommendation and Security Council resolutions have been referred to in the CEDAW Committee’s concluding observations and lists of issues to States parties. The Guidebook also contributed to the global study on implementation of Security Council resolution 1325.

UN Women and OHCHR

Women’s access to, use of and control over land and other productive resources are essential to ensuring their right to equality and to an adequate standard of living. Throughout the world, gender inequality when it comes to land and other productive resources is related to women’s poverty and exclusion.  Barriers which prevent women’s access to, use of and control over land and other productive resources often include inadequate legal standards and/or ineffective implementation at national and local levels, as well as discriminatory cultural attitudes and practices at the institutional and community level.

The purpose of this publication is to provide detailed guidance to support the adoption and effective implementation of laws, policies and programmes to respect, protect and fulfil women’s rights to land and other productive resources.  It presents an overview of international and regional legal and policy instruments recognizing women’s rights to land and other productive resources, and discusses ways of advancing a human rights-based approach to women’s rights to land and other productive resources.  It sets out recommendations in a range of areas accompanied by explanatory commentaries and good practice examples and case studies from countries. The publication is based on the results of an expert group meeting held in June 2012.  It is hoped that the publication will be a useful tool for policy makers, civil society organizations and other stakeholders  in their efforts to realize women’s rights to land other productive resources.

UN Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice

Letter to the UN Human Rights Council President with regard to Human Rights Council resolution 26/11, adopted on 23 June 2014, on the “protection of the family.”

During the 29th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council, four UN Special Procedures — the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, and the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography — sent a letter to the President of the Human Rights Council expressing concerns regarding the debates on the Protection of the Family resolution.

UNDP

This paper uncovers barriers to equality in legal systems that restrict human rights along gender lines – patent and latent; and proposes possible ways to redress legal discrimination for accelerating human development.

It explores three strategic avenues for simultaneous action. One, fixing institutions – laws, legal practices and modes of access; two, changing attitudes of those who create, uphold, and use laws; and three, establishing ongoing assessments to reveal inequalities and monitor progress. The focus of evidence is from countries of Asia-Pacific. However, given widespread gender-linked gaps in justice systems, and similarities of legal challenges posed, the paper is expected to be relevant also for other similarly placed countries.

UNFPA, The Danish Institute for Human Rights, The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights 

The purpose of this Handbook is to provide National Human Rights Institutions with tools and guidance on how to integrate reproductive rights into their work.

Each National Human Rights Institution is as unique as the country in which it has been established, but that does not mean that many of their challenges, including within the field of reproductive rights, are not the same or similar. This Handbook is intended to give an introduction to reproductive rights, both what they mean in practice and their normative background, and how National Human Rights Institutions can work within this field.

A number of experiences from NHRIs have been gathered and are included in this Handbook.

UNFPA

Fact Sheet on HIV/AIDS

UNHCR

Nationality laws which do not grant women equality with men in conferring nationality to their children are a cause of statelessness and a concern for UNHCR under its mandate to prevent and reduce statelessness.

Since 2012, UNHCR has issued an annual background note on gender equality in legal provisions in nationality laws which relate to conferral of nationality to children. This Background Note provides the most up-to-date information available to UNHCR as at 8 March 2014.

Universal Rights Group

Authors: Marc Limon (URG), Nazila Ghanea (University of Oxford), Hilary Power (URG)

It is almost impossible to turn on the news today without witnessing scenes of hatred, violence and intolerance perpetrated in the name of religion or belief. The march of ISIL across Syria and Iraq, with associated reports of gross and systematic violations of human rights, may be an extreme example of such hatred, but it comes against a background of heightened religious hostility and discrimination in virtually every part of the world.

According to a recent report by the Pew Research Center, violence and discrimination against religious groups by governments and rival faiths have reached new heights in all regions except the Americas. This bleak picture is supported by the findings of the latest report on religious freedom by the US State Department, which concluded that 2013 saw ‘the largest displacement of religious communities in recent memory,’ with millions of individuals from all faiths ‘forced from their homes on account of their religious beliefs’ in ‘almost every corner of the globe.’

In the face of such trends, it is clear that the fight against religious intolerance and discrimination must be a key political priority for the international community, and in particular the UN and its Human Rights Council.The main UN global policy framework for combatting intolerance, stigmatisation, discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against persons based on religion or belief is set down in Council resolution 16/18.

Resolution 16/18 was adopted, with much fanfare, in March 2011 and hailed by stakeholders from all regions and faiths as a turning point in international efforts to confront religious intolerance. After more than five decades of failure, UN member states had, it was hoped, at last come together to agree a common, consensus-based approach and practical plan of action. Almost four years on, and against the aforementioned backdrop of heightened religious hostility, UN consensus around the ‘16/18 framework’ is at breaking point. Rather than working together to implement the 16/18 action plan, states have returned to pre-2011 arguments over the nature of the problem, the correct role of the international community, and whether the solution to intolerance lies in strengthening the enjoyment of fundamental human rights or in setting clearer limits thereon.

These divisions have re-emerged, in large part, because of conceptual confusion among policymakers about what implementation of resolution 16/18 means and what it entails. Linked to (and indeed flowing from) this conceptual opacity, states – especially states from the Western Group (WEOG) and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – argue over whether resolution 16/18 is being effectively implemented or not and, if not, who is to blame.

The present policy report aims to help put the 16/18 framework ‘back on track’ by cutting through the political rhetoric to understand the different positions of key actors and how to bridge them, and by providing an impartial assessment of levels of implementation.The report ends by proposing a set of recommendations designed to ‘re-energise’ the 16/18 process and thereby strengthen the international community’s ability to effectively respond to rising intolerance and discrimination.

Universal Rights Group

Report of URG Policy Platform

Many of the most important and intractable human rights challenges facing the world today are closely interlinked with religion and belief. Failure to protect freedom of conscience, the enduring problem of religious intolerance and incitement to religious hatred, as well as widespread misunderstandings about the nature of the relationship between religion and universal freedoms, all act as a major break on achieving progress towards the full realization of human rights.

This project aims to generate awareness and challenge misconceptions as to the compatibility of the main monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) and international human rights norms/standards, and make recommendations to more permanently deal with such misconceptions. It will particularly focus on the relationship between religious law and practice, and the enjoyment of women’s and children’s rights.