HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL ADVISORY COMMITTEE DISCUSSES HUMAN RIGHTS OF WOMEN

The Human Rights Council Advisory Committee this morning discussed the human rights of women and a request from the Human Rights Council for the Committee to implement a gender perspective in the issues on their agenda.

Pierre Sob of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) gave a brief overview of the OHCHR Women's Rights and Gender Unit's seven focus areas on human rights of women: gender sensitive administration of justice; piloting an integrated gender strategy for country engagement; gender mainstreaming in the work of the Human Rights Council; responses to sexual exploitation and abuse within the UN system; mainstreaming gender and women's human rights in OHHCR and with UN system partners; mainstreaming and protecting the rights of perceived sexual minorities, trans gender and intersex persons; and health and reproductive rights.

Experts noted that there seemed to be no request to the Committee to prepare a separate study, but only that the issue of women had to be included regularly in all issues discussed. One Expert warned that the Committee had to be action oriented and not simply mentioning gender mainstreaming in all issues. An Expert asked the Secretariat if there was a model approach regarding the integration of a gender perspective in a study.

Speaking on the issue of human rights of women were the following Experts of the Advisory Committee: Emmanuel Decaux, Wolfgang Stefan Heinz, Halima Embarek Warzazi, Shigeki Sakamoto and Mona Zulficar.

Speaking as the main sponsor of the Human Rights Council resolution, Mexico said that the mandate was very general and it did not request any specific work or action. For Mexico, it was important that the Advisory Committee include a gender equality methodology in all the work it carried out.

The International Federation of University Women also spoke about the human rights of women.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Advisory Committee continued to discuss the request from the Human Rights Council concerning the right to adequate food. In the general debate, the Experts discussed the setting up of a drafting group to draft recommendations to the Human Rights Council. The Committee agreed to establish a drafting group consisting of five members by consensus. The group consists of José Antonio Bengoa Cabello, Baba Kura Kaigama, Chung Chinsung, Latif Hüseynov and Jean Ziegler.

Speaking on the issue of the right to adequate food were the following Experts of the Advisory Committee: José Antonio Bengoa Cabello, Chung Chinsung, Emmanuel Decaux, Vladimir Kartashkin, Purificacion V. Quisumbing, Halima Embarek Warzazi and Jean Ziegler.

Also speaking were representatives of Brazil, Bangladesh, Nigeria and France. The non-governmental organizations Europe Third World, International Movement La Via Campesina, World Peace Council and Tupaj Amaru took the floor.

When the Committee meets at 3 p.m. this afternoon, it will continue to discuss human rights of women before taking up the requests to the Advisory Committee stemming from Human Rights Council resolutions on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order.


General Discussion on Request to Advisory Committee from Human Rights Council Concerning the Right to Food

MALIK OZDEN, of Europe-Third World Centre, said that when looking at the problem of nutrition in the world, one saw that hunger had been a global problem for a long time. Its causes, as well as those of the current food crisis, were well known. The response given to one of the greatest human rights violations was however insufficient. For this reason, Europe Third World supported the initiative by "La Via Campesina" for an international convention on the rights of peasants.

MUHAMMAD IKHWAN, of International Movement La Via Campesina, presenting the initiative, said that a conference on the rights of peasants had taken place in Jakarta in June 2008. After seven years of intense discussions on the content, their spirits were high and full of confidence that they would achieve an international convention. Such a convention would be the cornerstone to sustainable life for all human beings. Peasants, agricultural workers and farmers represented almost half of the world population and were the backbone of the food system. The current food crisis showed the systematic violations of peasants' rights. They were increasingly and violently expelled from their lands. They could not earn an income which allowed them to live in dignity. A mix of national policies and international framework conditions were responsible for driving them to extinction. Among these policies was the privatization of land. Moreover, violent expression was a daily experience for them. They felt as other oppressed groups such as indigenous people and women that time had come to fully spell out their distinct individual and collective rights. There were major gaps in the interpretation and implementation of the main human rights treaties when applied to peasants. Therefore, specific provisions and mechanisms to fully protect their rights were needed. A future Convention would contain the values of the rights of peasants which would have to be respected and protected by Governments and international institutions.

LAZARO PARY, of Indian Movement "Tupaj Amaru", on behalf of World Peace Council, said that the world food crisis was a result of the ultra-economic approach which led to an extremely unequal distribution of food. It was very disappointing to see what was happening in the rich countries, especially the lack of will of governments, speculation and soaring food prices. It was immoral that the governments of the north preferred to have a number of different types of food turned into fuel instead of saving the lives of children.

World Peace Council and Tupaj Amaru were pleased to note that the Committee had included the food crisis on their agenda. But the root causes had to be attacked, especially the structures of the markets and the voracity of the multi-national corporations, such as pharmaceutical companies that were especially present on the lands of indigenous peoples. The Committee should turn its attention to thematic in-depth studies to related crises such as the oil crisis and the housing crisis before considering the rights of women, the rights of persons with disabilities or those suffering from AIDS.

JOAN ERNESTO CHRISTOFOLO (Brazil) thanked Committee Expert Jean Ziegler for his speech yesterday. It was very important for the Experts of the Advisory Committee to understand that the right to food was a basic right. Without this right being fully enjoyed, all other rights made no sense. Mr. Ziegler was also thanked for having singled out the case of Brazil with regard to biofuels and the fact that they were not using primary food for its production.

Further, the problem they were facing now was the result of subsidies that the rich countries had been granting to farmers for years. A few weeks ago, countries had been unable to reach an agreement at the World Trade Organization on this issue. These subsidises were distorting the agricultural market. The Experts should take due account of this in their report. Farmers were unable to trade their products in a free and fair way because of this practice. This issue was, in their view, as important as the rise in oil prices.

MUSTAFIZUR RAHMAN (Bangladesh) said that the world was facing an unprecedented food crisis due to the extremely high prices. But already before the crisis one sixth of the world population did not have enough to eat. A range of root causes had been detected such as poor harvests, bad weather, steep growth in demand and bio-fuels. Land should be used to grow food for people. That was the immediate priority. In a long-term perspective, structural causes had to be attacked as well.

OSITADINMA ANAEDU (Nigeria) commended Jean Ziegler for his input yesterday. Basically, for all countries and especially for developing countries, the right to development was one of the biggest components of human rights that had not been addressed. Further, the right to food played an important part in development. The current crisis was a great opportunity to address issues that had not been addressed in past years. In essence, one could not deal with issues of civil and political rights, when an individual was not well fed. It was in Nigeria's interest to put it across to the Advisory Committee to see this matter of the right to food as a very fundamental human right.

The problem of hunger touched on the very basis of the lives of people in developing countries.
The rate of malnutrition would never be addressed through civil and political rights. Nigeria had been putting pressure on the Council for it to tackle development issues, but there had been a high resistance to get development issues inside the Council. The World Trade Organization and other bodies established also seemed incapable to do so, because of political problems. Nigeria's wish was for the Advisory Committee to begin to address issues of development.

DANIEL VOSGIEN (France) said that the world food crisis had affected all countries. It was not up to the Human Rights Council to study the reasons for the food crisis, but this was up to the appropriate bodies. The Advisory Committee should look at the problem from a human rights perspective. The Special Rapporteur on the right to food Oliver De Schutter was entrusted to prepare a report which was already available in draft form. Now the Advisory Committee should ensure that its recommendations were in line with the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur.

The European Union had taken urgent measures to react to the food crisis, and also had structural answers to it. Turning to the comments yesterday by Committee Expert Jean Ziegler, France wanted to clarify that the European Union would not bring the use of bio fuel up to 20% of consumption as Mr. Ziegler said. The European Union was referring to renewable energy in general and not only bio fuel. The Advisory Committee had received a mandate from the Human Rights Council. It was necessary to avoid any confusion with questions that had nothing to do with the right to food.

CHEN SHIQIU, Advisory Committee Expert, said that the matter under discussion was the right to food. They should focus on a human rights based manner on this matter. The question of food, including the food crisis, was a very complex matter and touched upon so many different aspects and the livelihood of so many people. This matter really deserved the highest emphasis.

However, according to the requirements written to them by the Human Rights Council, the Council was requesting that they not discuss the right to food from the angle taken by other organizations, but only from the angle of human rights. In the United Nations there were so many plans and programmes and declarations on the right to food, thus the Advisory Committee had to find the common point.

What were the concrete measures the Advisory Committee could take? Was it possible for the Advisory Committee to help the people on the ground to find solutions to solve the problem? These could include education or technical measures.

Further, the right to food problem should also become a theme that should be dealt with under the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review mechanism; every country should present in their report the specific aspects on how they deal with food problems. If the Advisory Committee could do something in this sense, it could be more meaningful than just carrying out discussions.

JEAN ZIEGLER, Advisory Committee Expert, wanted to respond since several speakers made reference to what he said yesterday. Turning to the statement of Brazil, Mr. Ziegler agreed that he had not mentioned the farmers earlier. It was true that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development was paying large subsidies to farmers and several meetings to reduce such subsidies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting or the Doha round were a complete failure.

Mr. Ziegler said he agreed with Brazil that export subsidies led to situations of hunger and had disastrous effects and led to malnutrition. He stressed that the Committee had to collect analytical analysis before sending recommendations to the Human Rights Council. Those recommendations would be normative in character. Mr. Ziegler said he strongly agreed with Mr. Bengoa that the legal aspect was important. Human rights were indivisible and interdependent. Organizations as the WTO refused to recognize the existence of economic, social and cultural rights. The Vienna Declaration should be fully implemented and the selective approach which had been practiced by certain States should be stopped.

Concerning the European Union directives on fuel substitution, Mr. Ziegler agreed that it was "renewable energies" on paper. However, realistically, 90% of those energies were bio-fuel, such as bio-ethanol and bio-diesel.

JosE Bengoa, Advisory Committee Expert, said, reacting to the statement of Via Campesina, that when the Advisory Committee was talking about the right to food, the business of peasant and farmers was very close to this problem. The request to open up some space for a convention on peasants' rights was very interesting. It had not always been easy to find a place to tackle this problem, maybe this was the reason why no progress had been made on this matter for years. If time permitted he would be ready to take initiatives on this subject during the second week of the session.

MAARIT KOHONEN, of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the expertise of Professor Asbjorn Eide had been used in the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights on this issue in the past. Committee Expert Halima Embarek Warzazi had reminded the Committee yesterday of Professor Eide's work.

Miguel Alfonso MartInez, Chairman of the Advisory Committee, wondered how the Advisory Committee should cover this request from the Human Rights Council. He did not think they should set up another working group. Maybe there were individuals that could take this issue and work on it for the Advisory Committee.

Halima Embarek Warzazi, Advisory Committee Expert, said that they had two Experts on this subject on board. Mr. Ziegler and Mr. Bengoa were both fantastic experts in this field. There was no need to reinvent the wheel, when they had two Experts present. Mr. Bengoa dealt with questions of farmers and extreme poverty. She proposed that these two Experts work on this subject for the Advisory Committee. She also reminded the Advisory Committee that Cuba, when drafting the relevant resolution, had wanted to know the causes that were behind the food crisis. In her view, the Advisory Committee could not give any recommendations when one did not know the causes of the problem.

Miguel Alfonso MartInez, President of the Advisory Committee, said that they were extremely fortunate to have these two Experts on board. It was true that it was important to understand and grasp the causes of the crisis, in order to give suggestions. Further, France's proposal that the Advisory Committee should refrain from studying the causes of the problem was contrary to the Advisory Committee's mandate.

VLADIMIR KARTASHKIN, Advisory Committee Expert, asked if it was necessary to create a working group. He suggested that Experts could be identified who could carry out the work to make recommendations to the Human Rights Council. As discussions had shown, Mr. Bengoa and Mr. Ziegler would be able to draft such recommendations. They could be discussed in January by the Committee and be sent to the Human Rights Council afterwards.

EMMANUEL DECAUX, Advisory Committee Expert, said that there was a contradiction. On one hand there was a proposal to limit the number of the persons involved and others wanted to form a working or drafting group. The mandate they had received from the Council was quite clear. They had to submit potential solutions. They had to ask themselves what the added value of their wok could be in light of the many organizations that had already carried a lot of work on the right to food. In his view, they needed more than two people to tackle this issue, they at least needed someone from the Asian and African groups, and perhaps they should also include a legal expert in this group. The more people they would have inside the group the better the work would be.

PURIFICACION QUISUMBING, Advisory Committee Expert, said that the two Committee Experts specialized in the right to food should be given the assignment to work on the recommendations. She stressed that the gender perspective should be taken into account and suggested that Ms. Chung participate in the group.

MIGUEL ALFONSO MARTINEZ, Advisory Committee President, commented that it was indeed a big advantage to have two Experts in the Committee who specialized in this issue and a contribution from Ms. Chung would be most welcome.

JosE Bengoa, Advisory Committee Expert, said that he was very grateful for the confidence showed in Mr. Ziegler and himself. But in light of the last statements it might in his view be better to have a drafting group. The gender question, the African and Asian perspectives were also important to be included in this issue.

JEAN ZIEGLER, Advisory Committee Expert, underlined that a working group was needed because within the international community divisions on the right to food existed. Representatives from Asia and Africa were needed to strengthen the position of the Committee.

In addition, he drew attention to an initiative which was going to be launched by Spain, Brazil and Chile in the General Assembly in New York. Also, discussions with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the States that sponsored this project were needed, but January would be a good timeframe.

EMMANUEL DECAUX, Advisory Committee Expert, said that technical obstacles of forming another group were really minor. Whether it was two or five persons in one group did not matter much. But there was a question of institutional architecture. Would the Advisory Committee mirror what the Human Rights Council was doing with its Special Rapporteurs? It would not be very effective, but a working group could be more effective in a pragmatic and legal view.

VLADIMIR KARTASHKIN, Advisory Committee Expert, said that the issue being discussed was complicated. It was maybe useful to create more than one working group, but since there were seven issues that the Human Rights Council wanted the Committee to look into, it would not be possible to create seven working groups. Mr. Bengoa's and Mr. Ziegler's proposals should be discussed in January. A working group should be an open-ended working group. He asked the Committee not to insist on a working group with representatives from all regions.

Halima Embarek Warzazi, Advisory Committee Expert, said that as her African colleagues were not here, she could not tell if they would want to participate in such a group. Also, she did not think that it was an important criterion to have a woman inside the group, as in the end they would discuss the outcomes of the working group all together in the plenary.

Further, answering Mr. Kartashkin, she said that there were priorities. The problem of hunger was one of the most important problems. If a person died from hunger, this person did not exist anymore and its rights would not be an issue.

PURIFICACION QUISUMBING, Advisory Committee Expert, agreed that it was not necessary that representatives from all regions had to be included in the drafting group. The gender perspective was important nevertheless, because it was mostly women who were concerned with malnutrition. The Asian Group would like to include Ms. Chung in the working group as a formal member.

Chung Chinsung, Advisory Committee Expert, responding to Mr. Kartashkin, said that in Bureau meetings, they had decided to change the timetable and they had rearranged the issues according to what they had judged as being very urgent first to less urgent in second place. Thus, it would not mean that they would need to form a group for each and every topic.

Miguel Alfonso MartInez, President of the Advisory Committee, stressing that he spoke as an Expert of the Committee and not as the President, said that he did not agree with what Mr. Kartashkin had said, when he said that they would end up being an Armageddon with seven working groups marching on. Further, it was also important for him that the Advisory Committee adopt all decisions with consensus and without a vote. Also, for him it would be interesting if the Advisory Committee had discussions and drafted documents as a collegiate body with all members present, not only through working groups. They could also work together outside the plenary. In his view, drafting groups could be an important part of their work, but it was surely not necessary to have seven of them.

General Discussion on Request to Advisory Committee from Human Rights Council Concerning Human Rights of Women

PIERRE SOB, of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, gave a brief overview of the OHCHR Women's Rights and Gender Unit's seven focus areas on human rights of women: gender sensitive administration of justice; piloting an integrated gender strategy for country engagement; gender mainstreaming in the work of the Human Rights Council; responses to sexual exploitation and abuse within the UN system; mainstreaming gender and women's human rights in OHHCR and with UN system partners; mainstreaming and protecting the rights of perceived sexual minorities, trans gender and intersex persons; and health and reproductive rights.

OHCHR had commissioned five studies related to those focus areas which were currently being approved.

Chung Chinsung, Advisory Committee Expert, asked the representative of the Secretariat what the Human Rights Council wanted exactly from the Advisory Committee on the issue of human rights of women. She had repeatedly read the relevant resolution and for her, the Advisory Committee just had to integrate a gender perspective in their work and reports. Or was the Advisory Committee requested to issue a report on this subject?

WOLFGANG STEFAN HEINZ, Advisory Committee Expert, asked the Secretariat if there was a model approach regarding the integration of a gender perspective in a study. Was the gender approach already integrated while the study was conducted or was there a gender advisor who would look systematically through the study afterwards?

EMMANUEL DECAUX, Advisory Committee Expert, said that he was also wondering about the practical application of the resolution. They had alr
eady initiated the integration of a gender perspective in their work when they had been talking about education and the right to food. They had talked about the specific effects of these problems on women. He thus wondered if they had to include a particular agenda item or if they should just include the gender issue when addressing all issues.

PIERRE SOB, of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that mainstreaming meant taking into account the role of women. By reading the Committee's recommendations it should flow from the document that women were embedded in the process. The author of a study would be in charge of including such a perspective.

Halima Embarek Warzazi, Advisory Committee Expert, said that the Human Rights Council was talking about parity and equality but they were the first ones that provided a bad example when electing the members of the Advisory Committee. Out of 18 Experts, only four were women. What was important in her view was that when the Advisory Committee was studying a problem, it had to incorporate the issue of women and see to what extent women were affected by the specific problem the Committee was discussing. But there was no request for a special study in her view. She could not see what else they could do.

CONCHITA PONCINI, of the International Federation of University Women, in a joint statement, asked if the Committee was going to be simply a watchdog or if it was to contribute conceptual tools to the gender question. Was the Committee supposed to take on specific issues?

She clarified that women's rights covered various subjects, but gender mainstreaming was an empowerment issue. Also, sexual abuse was not a root cause but a consequence of direct and indirect discrimination. Since women were actors and victims at the same time, they had to be involved in any issue.

ELIA DEL CARMEN SOSA NISHIZKI (Mexico) said that Mexico was one of the sponsors of the Human Rights Council resolution. It was true that the mandate was very general; it did not request any specific work or action. For Mexico, it was important that the Advisory Committee include a gender equality methodology in all the work it carried out. This morning there had already been an example showing the importance of the issue, when Ms. Quisumbing had explained how the gender perspective could be included in the work they would carry out with regard to the right to food.

HALIMA EMBAREK WARZAZI, Advisory Committee Expert, said she had been thinking about how the Committee could contribute to the issue. There was a need to ensure that political parties elected a quota of women. She proposed to carry out a study on how many women were working in decision taking bodies, such as the United Nations. At a later stage, the percentage of women in governments and parliaments could be researched.

Shigeki Sakamoto, Advisory Committee Expert, asked why the relevant paragraph of the resolution talked about the human rights of women and girls. In his opinion, human rights included the rights of women and girls without distinction.

HALIMA EMBAREK WARZAZI, Advisory Committee Expert, said the Advisory Committee should not focus on women's rights but on human rights.

PIERRE SOB, of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, responding to the Experts, said that concerning Mr. Sakamoto's question, human rights of women and girls were differentiated because women and girls had different needs. Girls were sometimes subjected to some kind of violence different than the one affecting women. It was important to make this kind of distinction, as girls were sometimes exposed to premature sexual life.

On the gender mainstreaming study, there was already a document produced annually by the United Nations Secretariat in New York, giving a breakdown of staff by age and gender etc. But in his view, the key issue was to develop a methodology of work.

Turning to the non-governmental organization's statement, there was, in his view a misunderstanding between gender issues and women's rights. The notion of gender was important, because men were part of the problem in the relationship between men and women and thus, men were also part of the solution of the problem. That was why it was important to ensure that men were, at one point, part of the discussion.

On the issue of parity at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, he said that at the senior level P5 to D, men were over represented. The main problem was often the passage to managerial level.

PURIFICACION QUISUMBING, Advisory Committee Expert, referred to the resolution of the Human Rights Council saying the Committee should regularly integrate a gender perspective in all the themes assigned to it. Was there to be a separate study or could the resolution be interpreted literally? A gender perspective would have to be defined in order to do so.

MONA ZULFICAR, Advisory Committee Expert, said that when she chaired the External Gender Consultative Group at the World Bank, they had monitored implementation of a gender mainstreaming perspective. The target had been to address, in every project, the specific needs of women. But this methodology did not work well. Ensuring that the word "woman" was appearing in each page of every document was not an effective approach.

ELIA DEL CARMEN SOSA NISHIZKI (Mexico) agreed fully with what was said by the Experts concerning gender mainstreaming.


For use of the information media; not an official record

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