THE IRISH member of the UN Human Rights Committee will today call for a national consultation on human rights so that people can explain how such issues matter to them.
Prof Michael O’Flaherty said yesterday that such a national consultation in Australia recently had an overwhelming response. He was speaking ahead of a major conference today at which the Government will be reminded of its obligations under the human rights conventions to which it has signed up.
The conference will be attended by two members of the UN Human Rights Committee: Prof O’Flaherty and Judge Elizabeth Palm, the UN Human Rights Protector for Ireland and former vice-president of the European Court of Human Rights.
Prof O’Flaherty is a British-based human rights professor nominated by Ireland for election to the 18-strong committee.
He did not sit on the committee when it questioned Ireland in Geneva last July on its implementation of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it ratified in 1989, as committee members normally withdraw when their own state is being questioned. He said yesterday that Ireland has obligations as a result of its ratification of this covenant 20 years ago. The regular monitoring by the UN committee allows for progress to be charted.
“We need a government that puts human rights at its heart,” Prof O’Flaherty said. “Human rights are in some bits of government here, but not all.”
He said human rights considerations were often absent from local government. “We need a human rights paradigm for government, and especially in relation to the most vulnerable in our community.”
The committee produced a report on Ireland’s record last July, he said, and highlighted a number of issues.
These were the position of women in Ireland, including the continuing reference to the place of women “in the home” in the Constitution, and the level of reported incidents of violence against women; the situation of Travellers and the lack of consultation with them in relation to solutions to their problems; and the problem of growing racist incidents against immigrants.
It isolated three issues on which speedy action was expected: rendition in relation to Shannon, denominational education, and the state of our prisons, a running sore for human rights committees.
“These are all seen as issues that can be dealt with in a year, but the other issues are equally important,” Prof O’Flaherty said.
The Government has a year to respond on progress on these issues, so it must prepare a response by next July. Asked how the UN committee could ensure compliance with the various international agreements, he said essentially the pressure was moral.