Pia Janning is Research and Policy Officer (Equality) with the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.
In 2011, Ireland was reviewed for the first time under the United Nations Universal Periodic Review, or UPR.
For those not familiar with the UPR, this mechanism was created by the UN in 2006 and involves a review of the human rights record of all UN Member States every four and a half years. The review is based on the human rights commitments made by UN countries.
The Government, the UN and civil society all prepare reports which provide information on the human rights situation on the ground in the country being reviewed. The State sends high level government representatives to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to partake in an interactive dialogue with other UN Members States.
The UPR differs from the UN Treaty Body system (UN Committees) in that it is essentially a political peer review mechanism. UN Member States ask questions and make recommendations to the State under review. The State may accept or note the recommendations made to it. A country’s international standing and reputation amongst its peers is an important factor of the UPR.
In 2011, 127 recommendations were made to Ireland, 108 of which the Government accepted or partially accepted. At its second review in May 2016, the State will be scrutinised on the extent to which it has progressed the implementation of recommendations made and on any new issues that have arisen since its first review.
The Your Rights. Right Now. coalition is a group of 17 civil society organisations and trade unions founded in 2011 to provide the civil society response to Ireland’s UPR. The coalition was reconvened in 2015 and this summer we travelled around Ireland to hear what people had to say about their lived experience of human rights and whether they felt any progress had been made since Ireland’s first UPR.
Here are just some of the issues that were raised at our consultations:
“When you go into a service, a service should be about options and when it comes to mental health in Ireland there are very few individualised options that people will get.”
“I really wish the Government could give the right to education and the right to work to people who have been in the system for long and quicken their residency. Also, I really wish for reforms. I wish for abolition of direct provision because there is no place called a home.”
“The major human rights and equality issue for people with disabilities in Ireland is that our Government is drawing [sic] their feet in relation to ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I think our Government needs to ratify this Convention as a matter of urgency. Maybe then when we have our rights then our services will fall into place.”
“One of the main issues we have is around the lack of progress around having Traveller ethnicity recognised and impacts that has on service provision in terms of identification of need in respect of things like housing and healthcare.”
In September 2015, Your Rights. Right Now. submitted its civil society report directly to the UN to inform Ireland’s UPR examination next year. The content of our report was heavily influenced by, and reflects, the issues and concerns raised at the consultations we conducted and in the written submissions people made to us. The report covers 20 themes including, but not limited to: gender equality, the right to adequate housing, the rights of the child, the impact of the economic crisis, prison conditions, mental health, historical abuse of women and children in medical and institutional care. 52 organisations and 3 private individuals supported the report by endorsing it before it was submitted to the UN.
On 15th December we will host a high profile launch of the report and we want to build on the support that we have already received by having as many organisations and individuals endorse it as possible. A strongly supported report will help us in our lobbying efforts to make sure that the issues raised with us during consultations are brought to the attention of UN Member States which will be asking questions of and making recommendations to Ireland next year.
The report can be found here and if you would like to endorse it please provide the below information and send it to rightsnow@iccl.ie by close of business Friday 4th December 2015.
“I, XX, having read the Joint Stakeholder Report of the Civil Society Coalition -Your Rights. Right Now, wish to formally endorse the report for submission to the UPR Working Group on behalf of XX.
I confirm that I have full authority to endorse the report on behalf of <your organisation>. I also confirm that I have read and understand the disclaimer included in the report that “all the views expressed in the report do not necessarily reflect the policies and positions of each endorsing organisation."
Signed: XX”
To find out more about the UPR and the work of Your Rights. Right Now. have a look at our website www.rightsnow.ie and our UPR animated video https://vimeo.com/132921504.
The launch of the report will take place on 15th December, Westbury Hotel, Dublin 2. 10.30am-12.00pm. To rsvp email rightsnow@iccl.ie.