31 October 2013
Yossi Dahan, Hanna Lerner and Faina Milman Sivan have published an article entitled ‘Shared Responsibility and the International Labour Organization’ in the latest issue of the Michigan Journal of International Law, vol. 34(4).
Source: International Law Reporter | New Issue: Michigan Journal of International Law
31 October 2013
Pavel Sulyandziga, Chair of the United Nations Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, said that states and corporations need to do more to prevent the violation of indigenous peoples’ rights as a result of business-related activities.
Sulyandziga presented the report of the Working Group in the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly. The report highlights how the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights can clarify the roles and responsibilities of states, business enterprises and indigenous peoples in addressing violations of indigenous peoples’ rights.
31 October 2013
In a news conference at the United Nations headquarters, Richard Falk, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, said that financial institutions and real estate companies involved with housing settlements in occupied Palestinian territory – which are considered illegal under according to the Fourth Geneva Convention – may be held criminally accountable.
The Special Rapporteur commented on his report that he presented to the UN General Assembly on 10 September 2013. This report focused on businesses profiting from Israeli settlements, with reference to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. It contains a model for legal analysis to assess the probability of liability, including international criminal liability, for corporate complicity in breaches of international law related to illegal settlements.
At the news conference Falk said ‘I strongly encourage all business to use the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as a guide for how to conduct their business, and to exercise due diligence to ensure they do not contribute to human rights violations and abuse, and in order to avoid responsibility for complicity in breaches of international law.’
31 October 2013
On 22 October, representatives of six countries located in the Congo Bassin, with timber industry representatives and civil society adopted the “Brazzaville Declaration” in which they agreed to jointly combat illegal timber trade in the Congo Basin.
The six states that adopted the Declaration are the Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and Gabon.
The Congo Basin, covering an area of 300 million hectares, harbours the world’s second largest rainforest after Amazonia. As a key resource for stabilizing the global climate, however, it is also a major supplier of illegal timber. The Brazzaville Declaration aims to implement measures that improve timber tracking, transparency and forest governance.
Source: UN News Centre | African countries consent to tackle illegal timber trade in Congo Basin – UN agency
29 October 2013
The Washington Post reported that despite having repeatedly denounced the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) drone campaign, top officials in Pakistan’s government have for years (secretly) endorsed the programme, and regularly received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts. Also, during the early years of the campaign, the CIA used Pakistani airstrips for its Predator fleet.
According to leaked top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos, Pakistan was not only regularly briefed on the strikes, in some cases it helped choose targets, or collaborated in a four-year period from late 2007, when military ruler Pervez Musharraf was in power, to late 2011 when a civilian government led by the Pakistan People’s Party had taken over. In April 2013, Musharraf told CNN that he had authorised drone strikes in Pakistan while he was in power. However, Pakistani security officials and former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani (2008-June 2012) denied that they had approved US drone strikes on the country’s soil, although a diplomatic cable from then-US ambassador Anne Patterson from August 2008, released by WikiLeaks, indicated Gilani had agreed to the strikes in private.
The Washington Post said the leaked documents showed the CIA, who runs the drone programme, drafted documents to share information on at least 65 attacks with Pakistan’s government. In 2010, a document describes hitting a location ‘at the request of your government’, and another document refers to a joint targeting effort between the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Source: The Washington Post | Secret memos reveal explicit nature of U.S., Pakistan agreement on drones
Source: Yahoo News | Former Pakistan PM, security officials deny US drone collusion