Arab Charter on Human Rights

The Arab Charter on Human Rights ( also Arab Charter on Human Rights, ACHR, Arab Charter on Human Rights ) is a 2004 agreed statement by the Member States of the Arab League, which is closer to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as adopted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation ( OIC) 1990 adopted the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. In it, the Sharia is not mentioned directly, but the Cairo Declaration and various core international human rights documents. After the seventh ratification she stepped between 15 March 2008. An older version was adopted in 1994, but ratified by any State.

History

The Arab League was founded in 1945 - not a member at that time showed a particular interest in human rights issues until 1968, the Council of the League, the Arabic Commission of Human Rights installed. The first draft of this Charter, prepared in 1970 by a committee of experts of the permanent Arab Commission, 1971 was finished and was forwarded to the Member States for review. Due to the lack of interest of many Member States and many misgivings of the few responding Member States of the draft was rejected again.

At a seminar in 1979, which was organized by the Association of Lawyers in Baghdad, the idea was taken up again. The association also developed the new design, which has received approval by the Council of the League and was passed through this in March 1983 to member states for approval. It was decided to postpone the issue again and ( then called " Organization of the Islamic Conference" ) to await the adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which was then adopted by the Islamic Conference of Ministers in 1990 in Cairo.

The Council of the Arab League adopted its Charter with Resolution 5437 on 15 September 1994 after objections from seven governments. According to the preamble It contained 43 articles, was only signed by Iraq and ratified by any other Member State.

During this time there were parallel initiatives of non-governmental organizations, which led to their own proposals or critical examinations of the project.

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

On the initiative of the Arab Center for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Education in December 2002, a Round Table on "modernization" of the Arab Charter on Human Rights was held in Sana'a in Yemen. This led to the adoption of the Sanaaer declaration on the modernization of the Arab Charter on Human Rights.

A further revision was called for in 2003 in the light of international human rights standards, and various reviews of Arab States and Arab and international non-governmental organizations. The Arab Commission on Human Rights invited with a decided on January 10 resolution, the Arab countries, to present observations and suggestions to improve the Charter, with the promise that the Commission will examine in January 2004, the Charter again.

From 10 to June 12, 2003 at the initiative of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies ( CIHRS ) and the Association de Défense of Droits et Libertés au Liban (ADL ) and with the support of the Euro - Mediterranean Human Rights Network and the International Federation of Ligues of the Droits de l' Homme, a conference held 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 on Human Rights, a number of international human rights standards and guarantees which have been adopted in other regions of the world, is missing and that necessary mechanisms are missing in order to ensure the implementation and monitoring ". Consequently, the conference participants expressed " from concerns about the efforts made by the recognition of the Arab Charter in its current state or with superficial or partial changes to the target". The declaration then counts subsequently principles and standards that should guide a modernization.

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

On 23 May 2004, the new version was adopted at the 16th Arab League Summit from 22 to 23 May, 2004 Tunis. This version includes the preamble to Article 53. After ratification by Jordan, Bahrain, Algeria, Syria, Palestine and Libya, it was as the seventh country ratified on 15 January 2008 by the United Arab Emirates and so came two months later on March 15, 2008. For States which ratify subsequently, shall enter into force two months after that. So one could read on the website of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, for example, on 15 April 2009 that Saudi Arabia, the Arab Charter on Human Rights now ratify .. According to the state in December 2009, ten members of the Arab League ratified the Charter. They are Jordan, Bahrain, Algeria, Syria, Palestine, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates.

A German translation of the current version with 53 items is not known at present.

Content

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

Article 1 describes the purpose of the Charter.

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

The other items can be essentially into four basic categories summarize ( in parenthesis the corresponding articles of the Charter):

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

In Articles 43 to 53 are organizational statements. As monitoring and for proposals, a seven-member expert committee (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 provides annual reports to the Council of the Arab League. State officials send every three years ( the first time after one year) reports on the observance of human rights and the progress of the establishment, where additional information can be requested by the committee (47). Future extensions of the Charter are regulated (50, 51, ​​52).

Criticism

One of the main criticisms is that no regulations for non-compliance of the Charter has been set. There is no Arab Court of Human Rights. It provided no public or private reports of violations of the Charter. The " Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam " is also reaffirmed in the preamble, which in principle provides all the basic and human rights under the reservation of Sharia. Article 4 acts as a general clause ( " The rights guaranteed by this Charter rights and freedoms may be restricted only if this is provided for by law ... " ) to the abolition of the rights granted. Finally, in the Charter Article 1 of Zionism is equated with racism and thus indirectly and unilaterally declared the fight against a UN member country to the task.