Country reports, rights of minorities discussed by Human Rights Committee.

Country reports, rights of minorities discussed by Human Rights Committee

Reports on the human rights situations in the Dominican Republic, Spain, the United Kingdom and the Cook Islands, which is self-governing in free association with New Zealand, were examined by the Human Rights Committee during a three-week session at New York (25 March-12 April).

The Committee also completed consideration of a number of complaints from individuals charging that their rights had been violated under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Committee's competence to recieve such cases, which are heard in closed session, is provided for in the Optional Protocol to the Covenant.

Set up to monitor compliance of States' obligations under the Covenant, the Committee consists of 18 people "of high moral character and recognized competence in the field of human rights", who serve in their personal capacities. They are appointed for a four-year term.

The 53-article Covenant, which entered into force in 1976, is one of the international instruments developed under United Nations auspices to give legal and moral force to the concept of an international bill of human rights. It consists of treaty provisions establishing a legal obligation on States to protect the civil and political rights of every individual, without discrimination as to race, sex, language or religion. It ensures the right to life, liberty, security, individual privacy and protection from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; guarantees the right to a fair trial; provides protection against arbitrary arrest or detention; and recognizes freedom of thought, conscience or religion, freedom of opinion and expression, and freedom of association.

In acceding to the Covenant, States parties also agree to submit reports, within one year of entry into force for that country and whenever requested by the Committee, on measures taken by them to give effect to individuals' rights recognized by the Covenant. There are now 80 States parties to the Covenant. Thirty-fourt States are parties to the Optional Protocol.

General Comments

Among other things, the Committee discussed the formulation of generaal comments on article 27 of the Covenant. Such general comments usually expand ont he Committee's interpretation of various Covenant provisions. They also identify matters on which the Committee would like more information from States in their reports to the Committee, which transmits its general comments to States parties and to the General Assembly through the Economic and Social Council.

Article 27 states: "In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own language."

Christian Tomuschat, expert from the Federal Republic of Germany, read out the text of draft general comments on article 27 prepared by a working group of the Committee at its last session. Mr. Tomuschat, a member of that working group, said article 27 called for careful reading. The Committee had not yet had an opportunity to explore its scope fully. The article was unique in that it contained the only provision in the international code on human rights that protected minorities; most of the other rights enunciated in the Covenant could be traced back to corresponding provisions in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.

The text stated, in part, that reports submitted to the Committee had often failed to provide sufficient information on the ways in which article 27 was observed and implemented by the State party concerned. The Covenant drew a distinction between "peoples"--which according to article 1 were holders of the right of self-determination--and ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities, whose members had only been endowed with specific rights designed to secure the existence and survival of the community concerned.

Article 27 established legal guarantees for the benefit of the individual members of the communities concerned, the working group's text said. Nonetheless, by protecting each and every member of a minority, the Covenant also protected the relevant minorities themselves, all the more so since the rights under article 27 were to be enjoyed by individuals "in community with the other members of their group."

Not every group which was numerically inferior to the remainder of the population of a given country qualified as a minority in the sense contemplated by article 27. The article referred specifically and exclusively to ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, and the use of the word "exist" in the opening phrase of the text implicitly indicated that the provision was intended to apply to stable communities with an element of continuity. The quality of a community as a minority under article 27 did not necessarily depend on a formal bond of citizenship of its members with the host State. The Committee had always considered indigenous communities to come within the purview of article 27.

Only persons linked to a minority group in a specific manner were entitled to rights set forth in article 27, according to the text. Whereas a person might become a member of a religious community by his free decision, "belonging" to an ethnic or linguistic minority was primarily a fact of life shaped not only by the subjective will of the person concerned, but also by objective elements. State legislation, when attempting to define membership in a minority group, must respect both elements, avoiding any kind of arbitrariness.

The substance of the commitment undertaken by States parties had been defined as an obligation not to deny persons belonging to a minority "the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own language". That imparted essentially an obligation not to interfere with the exercise of such rights and to refrain from measures that would discriminate against members of a minority in the enjoyment of those rights.

More often than not, the text observed, an ethnic minority would a the same time be a linguistic minority. Usually, a common language was at the heart of the specific culture of an ethnic minority. The right for members of a minority "to use their own language" was not restricted to private activities, but extended also to the life of the community in general. In particular, minorities should be free to publish their own press and to print books in their language, without being subjected for that purpose alone to a specific requirement of governmental authorization.

Article 27 presupposed not only a commitment of faithful treaty compliance by the State party concerned but also a reciprocal duty of loyalty towards the State by the minority concerned. If those two conditions were met, minorities by preserving and developing their specific identity, could at the same time enrich the life of the entire national community.

State parties, the text stressed, should include in their reports more specific information concerning ethnic, religious or linquistic minorities and on measures taken on the implementation of article 27.

Mr. Tomuschat agreed with Committee Chairman Andreas V. Mavrommatis, expert form Cyprus, who said that if the Committee interpreted article 27 in too broad a manner, it might place on States a burden which they were not ready to shoulder. No African State could subscribe to that article if it was considered to mean that each minority had a right to be educated and have official publications published in its own language. That would be going too far and might discourage countries which had not yet ratified the Covenant from doing so, while encouraging those which had already ratified it to submit reservations.

After Committee members had proposed a number of amendments to the text, the Committee decided that those amendments should be submitted to Mr. Tomuschat so that an acceptable compromise could be sought.

The Committee will consider the text at its next session, to be held in Geneva from 8 to 26 July.