The Role of Law Schools and Bar Associations in Promoting Human Rights A UNDP Perspective

March 4, 2019

Panel Discussion on Human Rights

Holy Spirit University of Kaslik

Speech delivered by UNDP

04 December 2018

Introduction:

The human rights are at the core of stability and development of each country. For that reason, human rights is one of the three pillars of the UN system, along with development and security. Those three pillars — human rights, development, and peace and security — are inter­linked and mutually reinforcing.                                     

Human rights necessary to development:

Human rights have gained an increasing presence in the development agenda in the past 20 years.

·         MDG: In 2000, Heads of State and Government committed themselves to upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in signing the MDGs. However, civil and political rights, as well as the rule of law, were are the sidelines of the MDGs. However, the absence of human rights and rule of law has often been cited as a factor in countries’ failure to meet targets under the MDGs (particularly countries affected by crises).

-   Evidence illustrates that the rule of law is an important enabler of peace and violence reduction.

-   Robust legal systems are critical for countering inequality and social injustice and ensure the protection of fundamental rights of those marginalized.

·         For that reason, human rights and the rule of law were clearly made clearer in the 2030 Agenda.

-   More than 90 % of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets are linked to international human rights standards.

-   There is a SDG dedicated to justice, security and good governance – the goal 16 “Promote Just, Peaceful and Inclusive Societies”.

The SDG 16 has 12 Targets. One of those targets is: Promote the rule of law at the national and international levels, and ensure equal access to justice for all ” (Target 16.3).[1]

Human rights necessary to security:

By protecting human rights, we can help prevent the many conflicts based on poverty, discrimination and exclusion (social, economic and political). The importance of promoting and protection human rights has become particularly important the past 15 years, with:

1.      The growing number of terrorist attacks in the world and the importance of the anti-terrorism agenda.

·         Research conducted by the Institute for Economics and Peace demonstrated that countries with higher levels of terrorism were found to have three statistically significant factors, one of them being the Presence of state sponsored (est l’auteur) violence such as extrajudicial killings, political terror and gross human rights abuses.[2]

·         UNDP conducted-research in Africa demonstrated countries where violent extremist groups are present often in countries who suffer from weak rule of law, and reactive security strategies.[3]

2.      More recently: the growing importance of borders’ management in the security agenda supported by the international community.

In a context where counter-terrorism and borders management agenda are growing, promoting human rights and strengthening human rights institutions is critical to ensure there is a balance between law and order and long-term stability.

Finding such balance is critical for the United Nations in Lebanon. For that reason, we believe our efforts should go to support reforms led by national authorities that put people at the center of the concerns of security institutions; and developed a Strategic Framework on Rule of Law that put people’s access to justice and security governed by democratic principles at the core of our efforts. Those are reforms that the international community should support.

Role of Bar Associations and Law Schools:

Governments have the primary obligation for the realization of human rights: All UN Member States have legally binding obligations under international law; and all Member States have ratified at least one, and usually several, of the core international human rights treaties. Lebanon ratified 6 international conventions, and two optional protocols.

However, and as formulated by former UN Secretary General  Ban Ki Moon: “human rights belong to every one of us without exception. But unless we know them, unless we demand they be respected, and unless we defend our right - and the right of others - to exercise them, they will be just words”.

Our collective challenge is to translate the conventions and laws that into meaningful and sustainable deeds on the ground, to advance the human rights agenda. Law societies and law schools have an important role to play in empowering individuals and communities to assert their rights vis-à-vis the state, and to build more just and equitable justice systems.

The UN have long been interested in the “vital role” of lawyers and bar associations play for the protection of human rights: Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers (1990) + Special Rapporteur.[4]  Law faculties have also an important role in promoting and protecting human rights.

That role can be defined as follow:

1.      Education:

·         Promote the knowledge of human rights (under the constitution and international conventions of human rights);

·         Establish Law schools legal aid clinic: Training law students in legal skills and preparing them to assume social responsibilities; clinical human rights education

·         Ensure continuous education of lawyers, so that they are familiar with international developments in the area of human rights so that they can invoke international rules on human rights before the courts and administrative authorities and influence legislation.

2.      Assist individuals and the population in the exercise of their rights:

·         Providing legal services to all in need of them; and co-operating with governmental and other institutions in furnishing those services of 'public interest".

·         Au-delà des cas individuels: Test the rights of individuals, and groups, before the courts to respond to structural challenges (strategic litigation). This is essential to transform law and develop the rule of law.

3.      Advocacy:

·         Promote basic justices services, such as equal access to legal aid;

·         Strategic litigation;

·         Participating in the public debate to introduce new legislation and take up the struggle for legislative reforms, notably those that can enhance the rights of the most disadvantaged;

·         Asking the government to implement existing international Conventions ; and ratify new one;

·         Promote a bold vision of the human rights agenda and access to justice

·         Be part of national reforms that affects the rights of each individual, notably, reform of security institutions; justice sector reform; etc.

4.      Monitoring role:

·         Monitor the implementation of human rights legislation, the needs for amendments and reforms;

·         Monitoring judiciaire de cas (pour des cas emblématiques – VBGS, etc)

·         Contribute to Human Rights Treaty Bodies and Special Procedures, as well as to the Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights (UPR).

·         Monitor progress on SDGs, especially SDG 16

These 4 roles are critical to ensure sustainable development and security in Lebanon that responds to people’s needs.

1.      In the area of security: these activities can support the reforms of security institutions (ISF reform, military justice, etc.) and encourage the international community to support this agenda, rather than a sole security agenda;

2.      In the area of development: these activities can enable Lebanon to achieve goal 16, and especially to allow equal access to justice for all.

[1] Promote the rule of law and ensure equal access to justice. DG Indicator 16.3.2: Unsentenced detainees. Definition:Indicator 16.3.2 is unsentenced detainees as a proportion of overall prison population. This indicator measures the total number of persons held in detention who have not yet been sentenced, as a percentage of the total number of persons held in detention, on a specified date.

[2] Global Terrorism Index. The other two factors are: (i) Greater social hostilities between different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups, lack of intergroup cohesion and high levels of group grievances. (ii) Higher levels of other forms of violence including deaths from organised conflict, likelihood of violent demonstrations, levels of violent crime and perceptions of criminality.

[3] Framing the Development of Solutions to Radicalisation in Africa, UNDP (2015)

[4] the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers (1990) that stresses that appropriate protection of human rights, whether political, civil, economic, social or cultural, to which all men have a right, requires that everyone has proper access to legal counsel provided by an independent legal profession