Arab Charter of Human Rights

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The Arab Charter of Human Rights (also Arab Human Rights Charter ; Arabic الميثاق العربي لحقوق الإنسان, DMG al-mīṯāq al-ʿarabī li-ḥuqūq al-insān ; English Arab Charter on Human Rights , ACHR for short ) is a declaration adopted by the member states of the Arab League in 2004 , which is closer to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights than the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, adopted by the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in 1990 . It does not directly mention Sharia law, but does mention the Cairo Declaration and various basic international human rights documents. After the seventh ratification, it came into force on March 15, 2008. An older version was adopted in 1994, but has not been ratified by any state.

history

The Arab League was founded in 1945 - at the time, no member showed any particular interest in human rights issues until the League Council installed the Arabic Commission of Human Rights in 1968 . The first draft of this charter, prepared in 1970 by an expert committee of the permanent Arab Commission, was ready in 1971 and was passed on to the member states for assessment. Due to the lack of interest from many Member States and the many concerns of the few responding Member States, the draft was rejected again.

At a seminar held in 1979 by the Baghdad Lawyers Association, the idea was taken up again. The association also developed the new draft, which was approved by the League Council and passed on to the member countries for assessment in March 1983. It was decided to postpone the subject again and to await the adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights by the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (then called the Organization of the Islamic Conference), which was then adopted at the Islamic Ministerial Conference in 1990 in Cairo.

The Council of the Arab League adopted its charter by resolution 5437 on September 15, 1994, following objections from seven governments. According to the preamble it contained 43 articles, was only signed by Iraq and not ratified by any other member state.

During this time, there were parallel initiatives by non-governmental organizations that resulted in their own proposals or critical reviews of the project.

Arab experts developed the draft of a human rights charter at a conference which took place under the auspices of the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences from December 5th to 12th, 1986 in Syracuse , Sicily . The project was then presented and accepted at the 16th Congress of the Arab Bar Union, which took place April 8-12, 1987 in Kuwait .

On the initiative of the Arab Center for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Education in December 2002, a round table on the subject of “modernizing” the Arab Charter of Human Rights was held in Sanaa , Yemen . This led to the adoption of the Sanaa Declaration on the Modernization of the Arab Charter for Human Rights .

A further revision was requested in 2003 in the light of international human rights standards and various criticisms from Arab states and Arab and international non-governmental organizations. The Arab Commission on Human Rights charged with an adopted on 10 January resolution, the Arab States to present observations and suggestions to improve the Charter, with the promise that the Commission will examine the Charter again in January of 2004.

On the initiative of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) and the Association de Défense des Droits et Libertés au Liban (ADL) and with the support of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network and the Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme held a conference in Beirut . This conference resulted in the Beirut Declaration on the Regional Protection of Human Rights in the Arab World , which states that “the Arab Charter of Human Rights lacks a number of international human rights standards and guarantees that have been adopted in other regions of the world, and that too the necessary mechanisms to ensure implementation and monitoring are missing ”. The conference participants therefore expressed "concerns about the efforts aimed at recognizing the Arab Charter in its current status or with superficial or partial changes". The declaration then lists the principles and standards that are intended to guide modernization.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights invited Arab experts to a meeting in Cairo in December 2003 so that they could make suggestions.

On May 23, 2004, the new version was adopted at the 16th summit of the Arab League from May 22 to 23, 2004 in Tunis . This version contains 53 articles after the preamble. After ratification by Jordan , Bahrain , Algeria , Syria , Palestine and Libya , it was ratified on January 15, 2008 as the seventh country by the United Arab Emirates and thus came into force two months later on March 15, 2008. For states that ratify later, it comes into force two months later. For example, on April 15, 2009, the website of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington read that Saudi Arabia was ratifying the Arab Charter of Human Rights. As of 2014, 14 member states of the Arab League have ratified the Charter. Jordan, Bahrain, Algeria, Syria, Palestine, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates, among others.

An extract from the Arab Human Rights Charter from 1994 and 2004 in German was published by Michael Lysander Fremuth .

content

The preamble is the same as in 1994, despite strong criticism of the incompatibility of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights .

Article 1 describes the purpose of the charter.

Article 2 of the Charter is very similar to Article 2 of the International Agreement of 1966, which proclaims the rights of the (Arab) people to self-determination, control of their property and resources, free determination of political structure and free development of economic, social and cultural development.

The other articles can essentially be grouped into four basic categories (the corresponding articles of the Charter in brackets):

  1. Individual rights: the right to life (5, 6, 7); the right not to be tortured and to be treated inhumane or degrading (8, 9, 18, 20); the right to be free from slavery (10); the right to security (14, 18)
  2. Judicial rights: the right that everyone is equal before the law (12); Rights to the rule of law and a fair trial (13, 15, 16, 17, 19).
  3. Civil and political rights: right to freedom of movement (24, 26, 27); the right to respect for private and family life (21); Minority rights (25); Right to political asylum (28); the right to choose nationality (29); Freedom of thought, conscience and religion (30); Right to private property (31); the right to information, freedom of opinion, speech and research (32); Right to free marriage (33)
  4. Economic, social and cultural rights: the right to work (34); the right to form trade unions (35); the right to social protection (36); the right to development (37); the right to education (41); the right to participate in cultural life (42).

New and important in this version is the confirmation of the equality of men and women (3, 1) in the Arab world. The new version also guarantees children's rights (34, 3) and the rights of disabled people (40).

Articles 43 to 53 contain organizational explanations. As monitoring and for proposals, a seven-member expert committee (is Arab Human Rights Committee , "Arab Human Rights Committee") elected by secret ballot by state representatives to two years each, each representative may attend a maximum of two terms in a row (45, 46, 47) . It prepares annual reports to the Council of the Arab League. State representatives send reports every three years (for the first time after one year) on compliance with human rights and the progress of the establishment; additional information can be requested from the committee (47). Future extensions of the charter are regulated (50, 51, 52).

criticism

One of the main points of criticism is that no regulations have been established for non-compliance with the charter. There is no Arab human rights court. No government or private reports of Charter violations are foreseen. The “ Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam ” is also confirmed in the preamble, which in principle places all basic and human rights subject to Sharia law . Art. 4 acts as a general clause to abolish the rights granted: "The rights and freedoms guaranteed in this charter may only be restricted if this is provided for by law ...". Finally, in the Charter, Zionism is equated with racism and thus indirectly and unilaterally the fight against a UN member country is declared a task.

Web links

Historical

swell

  1. ^ An-Na'im Abdullahi A: Human Rights in the Arab World: A Regional Perspective , Human Rights Quarterly 23, 2001, p. 713
  2. ↑ Fredy Gsteiger: Arab Human Rights Charter in Force , drs.ch, February 8, 2008
  3. ↑ Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, DC: Saudi Arabia ratifies Arab Charter on Human Rights ( Memento of the original of June 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , saudiembassy.net, April 15, 2009 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.saudiembassy.net
  4. ↑ humanrights.ch: Arab Charter of Human Rights , Ed .: Humanrights.ch , December 30, 2009
  5. ↑ Michael-Lysander Fremuth: Human Rights. Basics and documents . Ed .: BPB. Series of publications, no. 1650 . Bonn 2015, ISBN 978-3-8389-0650-8 , pp. 751-763 .
  6. ↑ Mohammed Amin Al-Midani Arab Charter on Human Rights 2004 ( Memento of the original from May 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 80 kB), Boston University International Law Journal Vol. 24 , 2006, p. 147 ff. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.acihl.org
  7. ↑ On this, see Astrid Hölscher: "Freedom of belief is one of human rights and claims universal validity ..." , mirrored article in the Frankfurter Rundschau, March 22, 2006