Human rights and good governance education in the Asia Pacific region

The Commission on Human Rights has been criticised for being a talk-shop where delegations are more interested in pillorying other countries for alleged human rights records and defending their own records than in taking serious action on egregious situations or in helping countries deal with human rights problems. There is some truth in this.

But CHR is a political body and much of the value of its work lies in the debates where particular problems are brought to the attention of the world and countries are forced to defend their practices.

To that extent, the value of CHR’s work is less in the rather repetitive and stilted resolutions adopted than in the debate preceding this (where NGOs are able to comment, as well as the delegations directly concerned).

It is true that in recent years CHR’s working practices have meant early items on the agenda - eg the situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories - have received far more attention and time than some other important thematic items listed later in the agenda - such as the rights of minorities and the work of national institutions.

Through stronger insistence on punctuality, respecting the time limits for interventions and avoiding unproductive procedural wrangles, we hope as Chair to be able to improve the balance of the debate on the different items of the agenda.

Conclusion

The process of parliamentary review of the National Action Plan for Human Rights and the ensuing consultation with the States will begin in the next few months.

The parliament’s Human Rights subcommittee will hand down its report into human rights education which may generate some debate as to how awareness is best raised, and how education is best carried out.

Some say HREOC might be better resourced to drive this process, while others say the National Committee on Human Rights Education should be tasked with establishing a Centre for Human Rights Education – and that Centre would review all projects currently in place (under HREOC and elsewhere).

Either way – or even if another option is adopted – a resolution must be found so we can coordinate our efforts better. I think both HREOC and the NCHRE do an excellent job, but having these two and many smaller individual groups besides, pushing often in different directions is not conducive to generating the combined momentum that is needed to raise awareness of human rights.