हिंसा मोहबाट होसियार

:

अचेलका युवाहरु माझ हिंसा अतिप्रिय भएको छ. हामीले हिंसाको संस्कार बसाली सक्यौं. दुइ दिन अघि प्रधानमन्त्रीलाइ बिरोध जनाउन त्रिभुवन बिमान स्थल गएका युवाले निर्दोष सवारी साधनलाई तोडफोड गरे, आगो लगाए. पर्सी पल्ट चितवन झ्यालखानमा रहेका कैदी बन्दीले आपसमा दुर्दान्त हिंसा मच्चाए. समाचारहरु पनि आङ सिरिंग पार्ने खालका सुनिन्छ. कतै घांटी रेटेर, कतै घनले हिर्काएर मानिसलाई मारिएको छ. एउटा टेलिभिजनमा एकजना तन्नेरीले फलाना फलानालाइ हामी मार्छौं भनेर हाका हाक्की बोले. संचारले पनि सामान्य मर्यादा बिर्सेर त्यस्ता अभिव्यक्तिलाइ प्रसारण गरिदियो. उनले कालो मास्क लगाएर बोले. प्रेस  काउन्सिल , पत्रकार महासंघ, संचार मन्त्रालय सबै छन. तर सबै श्री तीन महाराज जस्ता भएका छन. लिखित उजुरी, बिन्ती नपरी कोहि तात्दैन. नेताले खुलेआम हिँसा को पक्षमा बोल्छन. त्यसरी बोल्न हुन्न भन्ने हरु पनि छन. तर " जेठा मामा त भाङ्ग्रा को धोती, कान्छा मामा को  के गति?" भने जस्तो भयो हाम्रो देश. देश त सबैको बराबरी हो. अचेल जे बिग्रे पनि पुलिस र नागरीक समाज लाइ धारे हात लगाउने चलन छ. पुलिस आदेशमा चल्छ, नागरीक समाज जहाँ तहीं रुन्छ, भुक्छ.

हाम्रो भावी पुस्तालाई कतै हामी हिँसा ग्रस्त समाज त बुझाउंदै छैनौं? हिंसाको संस्कार बस्यो भने मुक्त हुन पुस्तौं लाग्न सक्छ. चित्त नबुझेकाले निर्धक्क बोल्ने र तिनको बाणी लाइ तत्कालै सार्थक रुपमा सुन्ने संस्कार बसालौं.

सुबोधराज प्याकुरेल.

Subodh in youtube to celebrate 75th year of Freedom House

http://www.youtube.com/user/FreedomHouseDC?feature=mhee#p/c/09CDF17BB776F22A/1/kN5s3vFyVhs

Key development issues in Nepal from Human Rights Defender’s perspectives

Subodh Raj Pyakurel,

Chairperson:-

INSEC, Nepal. www.insec.org.np

FORUM-ASIA, Bangkok. www.forum-asia.org.

Topics of talk: What are the key development issues in Nepal. (IDS/ODC, Kathmandu, 18^th October, 2011).

In the NGO report submitted to the UN HRC for the purpose of review of human rights situation of Nepal in January 2011, Nepali Civil Society concluded that there are THREE main challenges:

1.      Discrimination: reflected in daily life of Women, Dalit, Indigenous people, Children, persons with disabilities and Madhesi and other ethnic minorities etc.

2.      Impunity: reflected in Weak rule of law, Transitional Justice and asserting and monitoring rights (Civil and Political Rights).

3.      ESCR (Economic, Social & Cultural Rights): lack of significant progress in addressing the human rights situation in the country in respect of ESC rights, delayed pretending shortage of resources and allocation to the ESC rights, Technical infrastructure and needed law.

While practicing Human Rights for Development of people I realize FIVE aspiration and strong commitment of the people to fight for:-

1.      Progressive Change for better future.

2.      Protection of Freedom for dignity and choice.

3.      Inclusive Politics for recognition and respect.

4.      Good practices for development of culture of equality and equity.

5.      Human Rights, a fundamental principle to guide the nation in all situations.

Politics of Wrong, Frustration and Misinterpretation:

·         Constitution of 1991 had all requisites of modern democracy and human rights.

·         Nepal became party to all important international human rights instruments including under process to ratify Rome Statute of the ICC (International criminal Court).

·         GDP growth on and average to 7 to 8 percent.

·         Process to resource and power allocation to local bodies started.

·         Free economy, private business and global partnership started.

·         Several laws were promulgated and process of creating modern state initiated.

·         National human rights institutions established

·         Civil society expanded in terms of coverage and issues.

·         Politics of Ideology and Trade Union expanded in fast pace.

o   But, the culture of discrimination in Socio-Economic fronts did not change significantly. Politicians instead of challenging discrimination were based on perpetrators.

o   Wide expansion of education, Media and Civil Society movements brought consciousness, raised expectation, asserted rights of the people while politics was unable to cope it in knowledge and technical expertise.

o   Within five years of newly borned democracy CPN (M) Communist Party of Nepal Maoist, started high voltage armed struggle to eliminate the system, infrastructure and culture. They claimed they had the alternative. At later stage they claimed they have parallel structure (but never could prove the process).

Right to development, according to Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (VDPA) 1993, is Fundamental Rights of the people, universal and inalienable rights. Part 1, Para 11 of the declaration states- “The right to development should be fulfilled so as to meet equitably the developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations”. The declaration emphasizes on Dignified Life, Right to enjoy benefits of scientific progress and its applications. During the Vienna International Conference states reaffirmed their solemn commitment to fulfill their obligation to promote universal respect for and observance and protection of all Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms for all.

Development for the people from human rights activist’s perspective.

·         Enjoyment of freedom.

·         Sense of security.

·         Equality in opportunity.

·         Access to capacity development.

·         Meaningful participation.

Change and progress towards betterment with affirmative perspective is development in current Nepali perspective.

Development & Hope:

·         Undeclared Nepal Living Standard Survey by CBS (Nepal Bureau of Survey) 2003-04 to 2009-10, identified that there have been excellent progress in some of the indicators; only 13% population below poverty line, Literacy has gone up to 70%, Child mortality rate, Girls education, Women’s reproductive health etc. has shown tremendous progress.

·         Constituent assembly represents proportionate representation of Women, Janjati and Dalit.

·         Civil society has been successful in making interventions to add perfection in many laws, putting parallel and counter agenda in international forum and holding discussions within the constituent assembly.

·         Media has been exposing public issues, uniting people and creating awareness.

·         Local governments are under more public scrutiny.

·         Judiciary has made several instructions on the formulation of remedial law and fulfillment of commitments.

·         Interim constitution provides wider protection of fundamental rights of the people including freedom of opinion and housing rights.

·         Comprehensive peace accord has stipulated guidelines towards peace process and transitional justice.

·         The work of CA provides an opportune environment to resolve some of the longstanding socio-economic and civil political rights related issues

Migration, a new perspective in National Development:

Non Resident Nepali and Migrant workers from Nepal working in Middle east and other countries has become a new source of knowledge.

Micro Hydro, Community forest, Collective Vegetable farmers, Cooperatives, Community Users’ groups etc…………….

Profile of SUBODH RAJ PYAKUREL

Mr. Subodh Raj Pyakurel is Chairperson of Informal Sector Service Centre (INSEC) and the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA). Executive Member of South Asia Forum for Human Rights (SAFHR), Mr. Pyakurel is also Chairperson of Human Rights Home (HRH), and Convener of NEMA (National Election Monitoring Alliance) and NCICC (National Coalition for ICC), Nepal and HR Treaty Monitoring Coordination Committee (HRTMCC), Nepal and National Coalition for UPR- 2011, a coalition of 235 HR NGOs to present alternative report at UPR of Nepal in HRC, Geneva.

Mr. Pyakurel had also served as a member of the National Monitoring Committee on Code of Conduct for Ceasefire (NMCC) formed by an agreement between the government and CPN (Maoist) to monitor human rights situation during the cease fire by State and the CPN (Maoist) in 2006. He was appointed member of high level committee to monitor composite peace agreement and other political agreements.

He has attended several programs related with Human Rights and Democracy and for that purpose he has visited several countries and UN events.

His role on motivating grass roots Human Rights and democratic Rights defenders and People and Media from around the country to oppose King’s unconstitutional take over in the year 2005 has been greatly recognized and acclaimed

Mr. Pyakurel is a resident of Biratnagar-15, Morang, Nepal. He is a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Tribhuvan University, Nepal and acquires a Short-term Graduate Training Course on Financial Program Management from Program Planning Centre, Bradford University, United Kingdom.

Mr. Pyakurel can be reached at +977 98510 26841 (Mobile), +977 1 4278770 (Tel.) and insec@insec.org.np or subodh.freenep@gmail.com.

Regional Human Rights Mechanism in South Asia

Knowledge-Sharing Workshop on Sub-Regional Human Rights Mechanisms, Jindal Global University (JGU), National Capital Region of, 8-10 December 2011 Delhi India

South Asian countries are connected and interrelated by their geographical, ecological and environmental and cultural interdependence as well. Anthropological, historical, philosophical, religious and cultural bonds make us naturally closer to each other. South Asia region, the homeland of one-fifth of the world’s population is still grappling with daunting human rights challenges, such as impunity, the lack of political will if not sheer disinterest of a number of governments to comply with their human rights obligations, continued curtailment of civil and political rights as well as widespread poverty and underdevelopment. Countries in the region are buffeted by increasing challenges from internal strife and unrest, the threat of terrorist attacks followed by attack against democratic rights, fundamental freedoms   and civil liberties in the name of counter-terrorism measures and national security legislations.

One of the most welcome developments in South Asia has been the emergence of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in 1985 which aims for promoting regional cooperation to work together, in a spirit of friendship, trust and understanding, to improve people's quality of life; to accelerate economic growth, social programs, cultural development, to strengthen self-reliance among South Asian states and to promote collaboration in economic, social, technical and scientific fields. Even after the 26 years since its establishment, no program has been effectively implemented to achieve the Charter goals or to establish South Asian identity as an integrated region in addressing issues of human rights and development despite repeated commitments from the member countries of the SAARC expressed through their   constitutional, legal and national policies as state party to international human rights treaties.

The continued widespread and worsening poverty and underdevelopment in many South Asian countries points to the failure of governments as duty-bearers in upholding and fulfilling the basic right of a dignified human life for their citizens and constituencies, as well as the failure of so-called economic and development models. No country of the SAARC region has formally rejected on the need of building a judicial and egalitarian society in the 21st century. However, the activities of the past 26 years of SAARC have proved that the speeches made by state heads each year have been futile and the mechanisms established under the SAARC are ineffective without any involvement and partnership of civil society. Therefore, many critics are hesitant with reasonable doubt that SAARC will not be able to yield effective results unless there is a guarantee of democracy and the rule of law and adherence to and implementation of international principles of human rights norms.

The establishment of the ‘South Asia Forum’ for the generation of debate and discussion during the 16^th SAARC held in Thimpu, Bhutan on 28-29 April, 2010, and continuing the idea of the SAARC democracy Charter have provided additional blocks for further strengthening the region’s commitment to human rights. However, compared with development in the African, European, Inter-American and ASAEN region, the activities and initiatives of SAARC are at a very preliminary stage. South Asia is lagging behind to learn from the success stories and learned lessons of other regional organizations such as European Union which has already managed to transcend beyond the national borders among to work together towards enhancement of democracy, human rights and economic integrity from various mechanisms including use of Euro as a single currency. Likewise, the positive steps initiated by African regional organizations for security and human rights and the commendable work carried out by the Latin American regional mechanism for the protection and promotion of human rights, that has involved making the concerned member states accountable to gross violation of human rights including enforced disappearances. SAARC has immense opportunity to learn from the existing regional mechanisms that can help feed into its future policies on regional mechanisms for democracy and human rights.

The most effective action for the protection and promotion of human rights must take place at the national level. However, in South Asia, most national human rights institutions are still too weak and lack independence. Having a regional mechanism would be beneficial in complementing, strengthening and reinforcing the work of NHRIs and existing international human rights mechanisms as well. Therefore, concerted and consistent efforts are necessary from civil society organizations and key stakeholders for the establishment of regional and sub-regional institutions and mechanisms for the promotion and protection of human rights in South Asia.

It was Maldivian president Mohammad Nasheed who proposed for the development of a ‘SAARC Human Rights mechanism’ during the 16th SAARC summit held in Bhutan. As the host of the next summit, the Maldives had a crucial role to play in including issues of human rights in the working list in the 17th SAARC summit held on 10-11November 2011.However, no concrete proposal on human rights was discussed except the reiteration for a regional mechanism for the promotion of good governance and human rights during the inaugural speech of President Nasheed in the Maldives Summit. The South Asian civil society expected that South Asian countries would raise their concern regarding human rights supported by the cases of India, with its proposal of South Asia Forum, Bangladesh with its proposal of ‘SAARC Democracy Charter’; Nepal as the supporter of a civil society-proposed human rights mechanism, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as the champions of climate change; who were expected to play an important role in the 17^th summit. However, as in the previous sessions, the 17^th summit also could not integrate itself with the millennium expectations of SAARC citizens. The four ministerial agreements signed during the summit namely   SAARC Agreement on Rapid Response to Natural Disasters, SAARC Seed Bank Agreement, SAARC Agreement on Multilateral Arrangement on Recognition of Conformity Assessment and SAARC Agreement on Implementation of Regional Standards were endorsed without mentioning any direct linkage with human rights and addressing the demand for the establishment of regional human Rights mechanism in the South Asia.

Since the establishment of the SAARC, civil society has been encouraging the governments for regional inter-governmental initiatives for the promotion of freedom, justice and peace. The South Asia People's Forum:" People's SAARC"[1] organized in 2005 brought together national and international social activists, intellectuals and secular and democratic forces interested in the preservation of the secular, pluralistic and democratic fabric of the South Asian society. In 2007 and 2008, SAAPE mobilized its resources and members to make ‘Peoples SAARC’, a broader and larger event. In 2010 representatives of non-governmental organizations and people’s movements across the SAARC region at the “First Sub-Regional Workshop on South Asia Human Rights Mechanism”, gathered together in Kathmandu to call for the establishment of the regional human rights mechanism in South Asia. As an important follow-up to the Kathmandu workshop, a half day workshop was conducted by FORUM-ASIA at the premises of “People’s SAARC” in India, New Delhi on 21 April 2010 to broaden, strengthen and consolidate efforts in building sub-regional campaigns on establishment of human rights body for South Asia. Similarly, with the aim to facilitate strong advocacy for the regional mechanism, a seminar on “The need of Inter-Governmental Human Rights Mechanism in South Asia” was organized in Islamabad, Pakistan on 16 November 2010. The Fifth General Forum of the Solidarity for Asian People’s Advocacy (SAPA) Working Group on South Asia held on 18th February 2011 in Dhaka, Bangladesh deliberated on the issue of regional human rights mechanism in South Asia and SAARC Charter of Democracy and came out with strong recommendations to the South Asian governments in addressing the situation of human rights violations through strong and accountable human rights mechanisms and participation of civil society in the SAARC process. In addition to this, prominent civil society members gathered in Kathmandu for the ‘Second Sub-Regional Workshop on Human Rights Mechanism in South Asia’ on 25-26 July 2011 to develop concrete strategy to generate dialogue and discussion on establishing a regional human rights body in South Asia. The workshop recommended an informal working group and identified need for full involvement of civil society in development of human rights instruments and mechanisms as essential for the credibility and legitimacy of systems.

The regional human rights mechanisms have become an integral part of the human rights system as they:

1. Act as a check and balance on national process
2. Promote regional peace, security and human rights
3. Provide regional input to the development of international human rights standards and the improvement of international human rights mechanisms
4. Help national governments to better address human rights concerns that cross national borders; for example, human rights violations and abuses that come from organized crime, including terrorism, human trafficking, migration etc.

Establishment of an independent, effective and accountable 'Human Rights Commission' with an explicit mandate of monitoring, promotional and recommendatory powers can assist South Asian member states in addressing human rights concerns in their respective areas of jurisdiction; ensure that international human rights laws are observed and implemented by SAARC countries who have agreed to them; and help South Asian people to have a common understanding of universal human rights issues and perspectives. While doing so, the body can seek to benefit from the expertise and experience of groups, organizations and individuals as well as human rights best practices and positive developments within the region and internationally as stipulated in the ASEAN rule of procedures and other Regional mechanisms. Such machinery guided by  international principles and best practices of human rights will need to be scrutinized in order to make it accountable based on the obligations of the member states to the principles of Human Rights and Democracy.. In order to make SAARC more effective as a regional mechanism to combat impunity, promote basic rights of the peoples of the region, SAARC should reform from within to create a new mechanism.

    SAARC region is rich in terms of its   long tradition and history of people’s movements and non-governmental organizations in South Asia struggling for democracy, human rights, justice and peace. In order to translate the commitment expressed by SAARC through a number of frameworks, Conventions, Declarations and established mechanisms, it should establish an independent, effective and accountable regional human rights mechanism by expanding the 'SAARC Social Charter' and 'SAARC Charter on Democracy' through an enabling protocol with an explicit mandate of promoting, protecting and fulfilling human rights, through a process of wide consultation with non-governmental organizations, people movements at national and regional level. Moreover, SAARC should recognize the role of the National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) and civil society in SAARC process towards consolidating democracy and human rights in addressing the pressing   human rights issues of the region including gross violations of human rights and abuses, hunger, unemployment, and violence against women and children. Therefore, SAARC needs to review its current practice of functioning by bureaucracy and restricting access of civil society organizations in the debate, dialogue and agenda setting.

The voice of the people of South Asia that has largely been ignored needs to be heard; considered and acted upon; particularly with regard to how they want to pursue the issue of democratization and human rights.

Subodh Raj Pyakurel

Chairperson

Informal Sector Service Centre (INSEC),

FORUM-ASIA, Bangkok. www.forum-asia.org.

G.P.O. Box: 2726, Kathmandu, Nepal

Tel.: +977-1-4278770; Fax: +977-1-4270551, (M) +977 98510-26841.

E-mail: insec@insec.org.np. subodh@insec.org.np. subodh.freenep@gmail.com.

Website: www.inseconline.org; www.insec.org.np

---

[1] The South Asia People's Forum:" People's SAARC" organized by PVCHR, Wiros Lokh Institute, INSEC and LOKOJ held from January 15 to 17, 2005 brought together National and International social activists, intellectuals and secular and democratic forces interested in the preservation of the secular, pluralistic and democratic fabric of the South Asian society

Regional Human Rights Mechanism in South Asia

Knowledge-Sharing Workshop on Sub-Regional Human Rights Mechanisms, Jindal Global University (JGU), National Capital Region of, 8-10 December 2011 Delhi India

South Asian countries are connected and interrelated by their geographical, ecological and environmental and cultural interdependence as well. Anthropological, historical, philosophical, religious and cultural bonds make us naturally closer to each other. South Asia region, the homeland of one-fifth of the world’s population is still grappling with daunting human rights challenges, such as impunity, the lack of political will if not sheer disinterest of a number of governments to comply with their human rights obligations, continued curtailment of civil and political rights as well as widespread poverty and underdevelopment. Countries in the region are buffeted by increasing challenges from internal strife and unrest, the threat of terrorist attacks followed by attack against democratic rights, fundamental freedoms   and civil liberties in the name of counter-terrorism measures and national security legislations.

One of the most welcome developments in South Asia has been the emergence of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in 1985 which aims for promoting regional cooperation to work together, in a spirit of friendship, trust and understanding, to improve people's quality of life; to accelerate economic growth, social programs, cultural development, to strengthen self-reliance among South Asian states and to promote collaboration in economic, social, technical and scientific fields. Even after the 26 years since its establishment, no program has been effectively implemented to achieve the Charter goals or to establish South Asian identity as an integrated region in addressing issues of human rights and development despite repeated commitments from the member countries of the SAARC expressed through their   constitutional, legal and national policies as state party to international human rights treaties.

The continued widespread and worsening poverty and underdevelopment in many South Asian countries points to the failure of governments as duty-bearers in upholding and fulfilling the basic right of a dignified human life for their citizens and constituencies, as well as the failure of so-called economic and development models. No country of the SAARC region has formally rejected on the need of building a judicial and egalitarian society in the 21st century. However, the activities of the past 26 years of SAARC have proved that the speeches made by state heads each year have been futile and the mechanisms established under the SAARC are ineffective without any involvement and partnership of civil society. Therefore, many critics are hesitant with reasonable doubt that SAARC will not be able to yield effective results unless there is a guarantee of democracy and the rule of law and adherence to and implementation of international principles of human rights norms.

The establishment of the ‘South Asia Forum’ for the generation of debate and discussion during the 16^th SAARC held in Thimpu, Bhutan on 28-29 April, 2010, and continuing the idea of the SAARC democracy Charter have provided additional blocks for further strengthening the region’s commitment to human rights. However, compared with development in the African, European, Inter-American and ASAEN region, the activities and initiatives of SAARC are at a very preliminary stage. South Asia is lagging behind to learn from the success stories and learned lessons of other regional organizations such as European Union which has already managed to transcend beyond the national borders among to work together towards enhancement of democracy, human rights and economic integrity from various mechanisms including use of Euro as a single currency. Likewise, the positive steps initiated by African regional organizations for security and human rights and the commendable work carried out by the Latin American regional mechanism for the protection and promotion of human rights, that has involved making the concerned member states accountable to gross violation of human rights including enforced disappearances. SAARC has immense opportunity to learn from the existing regional mechanisms that can help feed into its future policies on regional mechanisms for democracy and human rights.

The most effective action for the protection and promotion of human rights must take place at the national level. However, in South Asia, most national human rights institutions are still too weak and lack independence. Having a regional mechanism would be beneficial in complementing, strengthening and reinforcing the work of NHRIs and existing international human rights mechanisms as well. Therefore, concerted and consistent efforts are necessary from civil society organizations and key stakeholders for the establishment of regional and sub-regional institutions and mechanisms for the promotion and protection of human rights in South Asia.

It was Maldivian president Mohammad Nasheed who proposed for the development of a ‘SAARC Human Rights mechanism’ during the 16th SAARC summit held in Bhutan. As the host of the next summit, the Maldives had a crucial role to play in including issues of human rights in the working list in the 17th SAARC summit held on 10-11November 2011.However, no concrete proposal on human rights was discussed except the reiteration for a regional mechanism for the promotion of good governance and human rights during the inaugural speech of President Nasheed in the Maldives Summit. The South Asian civil society expected that South Asian countries would raise their concern regarding human rights supported by the cases of India, with its proposal of South Asia Forum, Bangladesh with its proposal of ‘SAARC Democracy Charter’; Nepal as the supporter of a civil society-proposed human rights mechanism, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as the champions of climate change; who were expected to play an important role in the 17^th summit. However, as in the previous sessions, the 17^th summit also could not integrate itself with the millennium expectations of SAARC citizens. The four ministerial agreements signed during the summit namely   SAARC Agreement on Rapid Response to Natural Disasters, SAARC Seed Bank Agreement, SAARC Agreement on Multilateral Arrangement on Recognition of Conformity Assessment and SAARC Agreement on Implementation of Regional Standards were endorsed without mentioning any direct linkage with human rights and addressing the demand for the establishment of regional human Rights mechanism in the South Asia.

Since the establishment of the SAARC, civil society has been encouraging the governments for regional inter-governmental initiatives for the promotion of freedom, justice and peace. The South Asia People's Forum:" People's SAARC"[1] organized in 2005 brought together national and international social activists, intellectuals and secular and democratic forces interested in the preservation of the secular, pluralistic and democratic fabric of the South Asian society. In 2007 and 2008, SAAPE mobilized its resources and members to make ‘Peoples SAARC’, a broader and larger event. In 2010 representatives of non-governmental organizations and people’s movements across the SAARC region at the “First Sub-Regional Workshop on South Asia Human Rights Mechanism”, gathered together in Kathmandu to call for the establishment of the regional human rights mechanism in South Asia. As an important follow-up to the Kathmandu workshop, a half day workshop was conducted by FORUM-ASIA at the premises of “People’s SAARC” in India, New Delhi on 21 April 2010 to broaden, strengthen and consolidate efforts in building sub-regional campaigns on establishment of human rights body for South Asia. Similarly, with the aim to facilitate strong advocacy for the regional mechanism, a seminar on “The need of Inter-Governmental Human Rights Mechanism in South Asia” was organized in Islamabad, Pakistan on 16 November 2010. The Fifth General Forum of the Solidarity for Asian People’s Advocacy (SAPA) Working Group on South Asia held on 18th February 2011 in Dhaka, Bangladesh deliberated on the issue of regional human rights mechanism in South Asia and SAARC Charter of Democracy and came out with strong recommendations to the South Asian governments in addressing the situation of human rights violations through strong and accountable human rights mechanisms and participation of civil society in the SAARC process. In addition to this, prominent civil society members gathered in Kathmandu for the ‘Second Sub-Regional Workshop on Human Rights Mechanism in South Asia’ on 25-26 July 2011 to develop concrete strategy to generate dialogue and discussion on establishing a regional human rights body in South Asia. The workshop recommended an informal working group and identified need for full involvement of civil society in development of human rights instruments and mechanisms as essential for the credibility and legitimacy of systems.

The regional human rights mechanisms have become an integral part of the human rights system as they:

1. Act as a check and balance on national process
2. Promote regional peace, security and human rights
3. Provide regional input to the development of international human rights standards and the improvement of international human rights mechanisms
4. Help national governments to better address human rights concerns that cross national borders; for example, human rights violations and abuses that come from organized crime, including terrorism, human trafficking, migration etc.

Establishment of an independent, effective and accountable 'Human Rights Commission' with an explicit mandate of monitoring, promotional and recommendatory powers can assist South Asian member states in addressing human rights concerns in their respective areas of jurisdiction; ensure that international human rights laws are observed and implemented by SAARC countries who have agreed to them; and help South Asian people to have a common understanding of universal human rights issues and perspectives. While doing so, the body can seek to benefit from the expertise and experience of groups, organizations and individuals as well as human rights best practices and positive developments within the region and internationally as stipulated in the ASEAN rule of procedures and other Regional mechanisms. Such machinery guided by  international principles and best practices of human rights will need to be scrutinized in order to make it accountable based on the obligations of the member states to the principles of Human Rights and Democracy.. In order to make SAARC more effective as a regional mechanism to combat impunity, promote basic rights of the peoples of the region, SAARC should reform from within to create a new mechanism.

    SAARC region is rich in terms of its   long tradition and history of people’s movements and non-governmental organizations in South Asia struggling for democracy, human rights, justice and peace. In order to translate the commitment expressed by SAARC through a number of frameworks, Conventions, Declarations and established mechanisms, it should establish an independent, effective and accountable regional human rights mechanism by expanding the 'SAARC Social Charter' and 'SAARC Charter on Democracy' through an enabling protocol with an explicit mandate of promoting, protecting and fulfilling human rights, through a process of wide consultation with non-governmental organizations, people movements at national and regional level. Moreover, SAARC should recognize the role of the National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) and civil society in SAARC process towards consolidating democracy and human rights in addressing the pressing   human rights issues of the region including gross violations of human rights and abuses, hunger, unemployment, and violence against women and children. Therefore, SAARC needs to review its current practice of functioning by bureaucracy and restricting access of civil society organizations in the debate, dialogue and agenda setting.

The voice of the people of South Asia that has largely been ignored needs to be heard; considered and acted upon; particularly with regard to how they want to pursue the issue of democratization and human rights.

Subodh Raj Pyakurel

Chairperson

Informal Sector Service Centre (INSEC),

FORUM-ASIA, Bangkok. www.forum-asia.org.

G.P.O. Box: 2726, Kathmandu, Nepal

Tel.: +977-1-4278770; Fax: +977-1-4270551, (M) +977 98510-26841.

E-mail: insec@insec.org.np. subodh@insec.org.np. subodh.freenep@gmail.com.

Website: www.inseconline.org; www.insec.org.np

---

[1] The South Asia People's Forum:" People's SAARC" organized by PVCHR, Wiros Lokh Institute, INSEC and LOKOJ held from January 15 to 17, 2005 brought together National and International social activists, intellectuals and secular and democratic forces interested in the preservation of the secular, pluralistic and democratic fabric of the South Asian society