PACIFIC WOMEN, PACIFIC PLAN: STEPPING UP THE PACE TO 2010

Agenda Item 5, Thursday 29 May: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

Placing women's human rights at the centre of the UN human rights system

Paulo David, Regional Representative, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), regional office for the Pacific

Madame la Présidente,

Excellences et délégués des pays et territories du Pacifique

Chers Participants,

In his 2005 report 'In Larger Freedom,' the United Nations Secretary-General, at the time Kofi Annan, strongly reaffirmed the centrality of human rights in the work and mandate of the United Nations. He made clear that "we will not enjoy development without security, we will not enjoy security without development, and we will not enjoy either without respect for human rights" (A/59/2005, paragraph 17).

The United Nations High Commissioner's for Human Rights Plan of Action (A/59/2005/Add.3) articulates her strategic vision of how human rights can be strengthened in the work of the United Nations so that they can achieve their key role. The Plan of Action emphasizes a) country engagement, b) the leadership role of the UN High Commissioner, and c) working in partnership with United Nations agencies and civil society as central components of this vision. Building on the achievements of the past, in particular in the area of standard-setting, the Plan of Action envisages greater attention to a wide range of 'implementation gaps,' including those related to knowledge, capacity, commitment and security so that all women and men can realize and enjoy their rights.

The 2005 Millennium Development World Summit Outcome emphasized "the need to pay special attention to the human rights of women and children, and [undertook] to advance them in every possible way, including by bringing gender and child-protection perspectives into the human rights agenda" (A/RES/60/1, paragraph 128). World leaders stressed the importance of gender mainstreaming throughout the United Nations system, and affirmed their commitment to the promotion of gender equality and the elimination of gender discrimination. Governments resolved to promote women's human rights, including through the full and effective implementation of Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. They also agreed to adhere to, and implement, the rule of law.

The UN High Commissioner, Ms. Louise Arbour, is committed to mainstreaming gender perspectives throughout the work of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and also the numerous human rights mechanisms. She is further committed to ensuring that women's human rights receive the specific attention they require, in all United Nations activities. The High Commissioner has recently strengthened the expertise and capacity of her Office relating to gender and women's human rights and made these areas central to the upgraded United Nations human rights programme.

CEDAW and the UN Human Rights Programme

The recent upgrading of the UN Commission on Human Rights to a UN Human Rights Council, and the increase of the resources of OHCHR through the regular UN budget, provide a unique opportunity to situate women's rights at the centre of an enhanced and integrated United Nations human rights machinery. As part of her commitment to strengthen activities to promote and protect all human rights, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had proposed in 2005 that responsibility for supporting CEDAW be transferred from the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) to OHCHR which currently supports six human rights treaty bodies, and is expected to support the treaty bodies which very will soon be established to monitor the conventions on disappearance and disability that have recently entered into force.

The question of the placement of CEDAW is not a new debate, but the United Nations

human rights environment has recently undergone a major evolution. Finally, in December 2006, the UN General Assembly decided that CEDAW be transferred from New York (DAW) to Geneva (OHCHR). The first session of CEDAW in Geneva is planned to take place during January 2008.

Transfer of responsibility for supporting CEDAW to OHCHR should raise the status, visibility and authority of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Committee. It should also guarantee that the Convention would be a key part of the human rights framework for the promotion and protection of human rights as one of the nine core international human rights treaties. It will once more stress the importance of the indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights. In addition, the CEDAW Committee will be viewed as an integral component of the human rights treaty system, rather than as part of United Nations activities in the fields of social and economic affairs, which is the mandate of DESA.

CEDAW's inclusion in the human rights programme should ensure that women's human

rights and gender issues are more effectively mainstreamed into the work of all human rights treaty bodies. The provision of support to CEDAW by an integrated treaty body secretariat with expertise in the area of women's rights should ensure that the Committee's approach, recommendations and decisions, in particular in relation to individual petitions under the CEDAW Optional Protocol, are consistent with the ones of other treaty bodies. This should also provide the basis for closer cooperation between the human rights treaty bodies, enabling them to function as a cohesive and coherent system, and enhancing their accessibility, visibility and authority. The presence of CEDAW alongside the other human rights treaty bodies should also guarantee that the interrelationship of discrimination against women and discrimination on other grounds, such as race, religion, political opinions, age, language, sexual orientation and nationality, is better understood and energetically addressed.

A common approach by all nine treaty bodies to the specificity of discrimination

against women should mean that targeted as well as comprehensive attention is paid to the promotion and protection of women's human rights and the achievement of gender equality in all countries of the world. Activities to strengthen follow-up to the output of treaty bodies should also take an integrated, gender-sensitive and women's human rights approach. Support provided to CEDAW by a coordinated OHCHR treaty body secretariat, as well as by staff from other parts of OHCHR, especially the field offices and geographic desks and those supporting special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council, should also enable country-based and thematic human rights activities to include women's human rights and gender equality fully.

CEDAW and the reform of the human rights treaty system

Over the last few years, CEDAW has been closely involved in all efforts and new measures directed at strengthening the human rights treaty monitoring system. Initiatives to streamline the reporting requirements of the nine human rights treaty bodies, improving their predictability, efficiency and coherence in their methods of work, as well as ensuring consistency in their interpretation of human rights obligations in the treaties, will continue in the next few years. These initiatives will be further enhanced now that CEDAW will soon be serviced by the same secretariat as the other eight human rights treaty bodies.

With increased resources allocated in 2005 by the General Assembly, OHCHR has established at headquarters level a dedicated Women's Rights and Gender Unit, comprised of six staff members to strengthen the Office's capacity to conduct thematic work on women's human rights and integrate women's human rights and gender perspectives into its activities, including the support of all human rights mechanisms.

The establishment of the Women's Rights and Gender Unit has reinforced the substantive expertise on women's human rights and gender issues already available to the Committees serviced by OHCHR, in particular in relation to implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Substantive thematic expertise on poverty, the impact of globalization and macro-economic policies on the achievement of equality for women, and other thematic areas such as the rule of law or the human rights dimensions of humanitarian crises, would also be available to the Committee.

Transferring responsibility for supporting CEDAW to OHCHR should further provide a framework within which to foster strong linkages between the expert work of the treaty bodies on women's human rights and gender equality, and the intergovernmental policy processes in the UN Human Rights Council.

The Committee's linkage to, and interaction with, the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which meets two weeks annually, will hopefully not be affected by the transfer of responsibility for supporting CEDAW to OHCHR. The Chairperson of CEDAW will continue to address the CSW, and resources would be set aside to enable CEDAW members to attend the CSW. One of the Committee's three annual sessions could be convened in New York at the time of the session of CSW to encourage enhanced interaction.

Transfer of CEDAW to OHCHR: what it means for the Pacific

What does the transfer of CEDAW Committee to the Geneva-based Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human rights mean concretely for the Pacific? Since two years, OHCHR has established a regional office for the Pacific in Suva , Fiji . It also has one staff placed in Honiara , Solomon Islands , and soon one in Port Moresby , Papua New Guinea . As the Secretariat of the CEDAW Committee will soon be managed by OHCHR in Geneva this will enable our regional office to play an active role with the 16 States of the region in terms of support to ratification of CEDAW, reporting under CEDAW, preparation of meetings between CEDAW and States Parties of the Pacific, follow-up to the recommendations adopted by the CEDAW Committee and other related issues. I wish to stress that activities undertaken by OHCHR Pacific office in the field of CEDAW will often result in partnership with other UN agencies, especially UNIFEM and UNDP's Pacific Centre and RRRT project, the same way we often engage in child rights activities together with UNICEF and other interested UN partners.

An Implementation Workshop for the Pacific

Since several years, OHCHR is organizing worldwide national or sub-regional Treaty Implementation Workshops. The main objectives of these type of workshops are to (i) facilitate the implementation of the concluding observations or comments [recommendations] of a specific treaty body (ii) exchange various implementation experiences among countries of a similar region (iii) identify achievements and challenges to assist in formulating implementation strategies; (iv) promote and build national capacity in the field of human rights; and (v) increase awareness of the importance and relevance of the human rights treaty system.

It is not a secret to anybody that too often, in many countries around the world, the recommendations ("concluding comments") made by UN human rights treaty bodies are forgotten and shelved in a dusty cupboard. The reporting process does not end with the meeting between States Parties and the CEDAW or other committees that takes place far way from the Pacific in New York or Geneva ; on the contrary the implementation process needs to be energized after these meetings. Since a few years, the Committee on the Rights of the Child makes it mandatory to all States Parties to put its set of recommendations on the agenda of the Cabinet of Ministers (or equivalent body) and Parliament for further consideration for implementation. We believe this is a best practice that should be followed by CEDAW and other human rights committees. The reporting process offers a unique contribution of expert advises on policy, legislative and institutional measures that need to be taken to generate positive change in the enjoyment of rights by all women in order to comply with the treaty.

The first implementation workshop in the region organized by our regional office for the Pacific took place in February 2006 in Fiji and related to the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. A set of detailed recommendations came out of the workshop and are meant to complement the ones adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

OHCHR Regional Office for the Pacific, with the support of UNDP, UNIFEM, UNICEF and UNFPA, will organize in October 2007 a CEDAW Implementation Workshop hosted by the Government of Vanuatu in Port Vila. All Pacific States Parties to CEDAW that have at least reported once under the treaty will be invited to the Implementation Workshop: Fiji , Samoa , Vanuatu and Cook Islands . Civil society groups from these countries will also be joining this event. Participants will articulate their work around the existing concluding comments adopted by CEDAW and will focus on four thematic themes that are common to all four countries in order to further implementation in these areas through sharing of experiences, knowledge and skills.

On another note and to conclude, I wish to bring to your attention that OHCHR Regional Office for the Pacific and UNDP Pacific Centre are now initiating the preparation of a Treaty Implementation Handbook for the Pacific. The Handbook will be focusing extensively on CEDAW as one of the most widely ratified treaty in the Pacific. We hope that this tool would provide State and non-State actors with a useful and practical instrument to move treaty ratification to treaty implementation and ultimately strengthen the promotion and protection of all human rights in the region.

Thank you. Merci beaucoup.

Note: I am grateful to my colleague Jane Connors in OHCHR Geneva for having provided information on the CEDAW move from UN DAW to OHCHR.