[IntLawProfessors] Fwd: request for support for Urgent Action communication to UN Special Rapporteurs re Manus Island offshore processing of asylum seekers by Australian government

[Don Anton]

Dear colleagues,
 
If you are interested in supporting this important initiative, please
review and see instruction at the tail end.
 
Kind regards,
DA


>>> Claire Mahon <claire.mahon at gmail.com> 13/09/12 13:55 >>>

Dear colleagues and friends,
I am writing to you to ask if you would be interested in supporting an
Urgent Appeal to the UN Special Procedures regarding the potential human
rights violations arising from Australia’s offshore processing of asylum
seekers to Manus Island?
Overview of our Urgent Appeal to the Special Rapporteur on Right to
Health and Special Rapporteur on Torture re Manus Island offshore
processing
The Global Human Rights Clinic is about to send an urgent appeal to the
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health and the United
Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment with respect to Australia’s offshore
processing facilities for asylum seekers on Manus Island. 
This urgent appeal focuses specifically on the risk of contracting the
deadliest strain of malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, which is endemic to
Papua New Guinea and resistant to artemesinin (anti-malarial)
treatments. The urgent appeal requests the Special Rapporteurs to
intervene to prevent the Australian government from violating the asylum
seekers’ right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental
health and ensure that they are not subjected to such cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment via almost certain exposure to non-treatable deadly
malaria infection. 
What about Nauru?
The Global Human Rights Clinic is also in the process of drafting a
more general urgent appeal which will also address the designation of
Nauru as an offshore processing centre.  We will be in touch about this
in due course, however at the outset we are focusing on the more
specific violations related to the right to health, malaria and Manus
Island.  We hope that this situation is more actionable and preventable,
although of course the larger human rights objections to offshore
processing in Nauru remain of grave and urgent concern. 
What is an Urgent Appeal to the UN Special Rapporteurs?
As many of you are already very familiar, the UN Special Rapporteurs’
Urgent Appeals mechanisms are individual communications systems which
are available free of charge for anybody to access, without a need for a
direct or consensual link to victims (actual or future).  The Special
Rapporteurs are individual experts acting in an independent capacity, so
this is not a political process, although it is also not a judicial
mechanism (which is a good thing in this instance, as it makes it much
faster and often more flexible and responsive to potential victims’
situations).
It is a very easy mechanism to use as it engages the international
human rights system through the simple sending of a letter to one or
more of the UN Special Procedures mandate holders. As a part of the
special procedures mechanisms of the Human Rights Council, an urgent
appeal does not require domestic remedies to be exhausted before it is
pursued. 
It is a confidential procedure, and the names and identities of those
submitting the communications will not be disclosed to the Australian
government or members of the Human Rights Council, or tabled at the
United Nations, but will be available only to the members of the Office
of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ secretariat supporting the
Special Procedures Branch and the Special Rapporteurs relevant to the
topic of concern.  
Why bother with the UN?

Once the Special Rapporteurs receive the urgent appeal, and if they
decide to action it, they can request the state concerned to provide
further information on the allegations or even request preventative
measures to be undertaken. This requires states to recognise (at least
internally) there is concern being expressed from the international
human rights system, and may lead to contemplation as to whether there
are altern
ative means of implementing their desired policy objectives
without having the same negative impacts upon human rights.  

In the past, the use of such mechanisms by human rights defenders has
led to various examples of positive remedial action being taken by
states after requests from the Special Procedures. Of course, there are
also many examples of states that have simply ignored communications
from the Special Rapporteurs, or whose responses have been perfunctory
at best.

We are not promising that this will offer a solution in this instance -
we do however hope that this urgent appeal will complement the many
forms of domestic level advocacy already being undertaken by many of
you, and the various attempts to seek policy change, mount legal
challenges, and change hearts and minds, that are currently being
undertaken in Australia.  

An appeal to the UN human rights mechanisms is just another tool in our
human rights advocates tool-box, and one that we hope may be worthwhile
using in this particular instance where there is an unreasonably high
risk of non-treatable, deadly malaria infection that the asylum seekers
will be arbitrarily and unnecessarily subjected to if sent to Manus
Island.  This action may result in a response from the Australian
government, but it may not:  It may result in some form of outcome (i.e.
greater measures being taken to protect the health of those being sent
to Manus Island), but like all advocacy, it is not on its own likely to
be a magic bullet.  

Nonetheless, we do not subscribe to the cynicism that many attribute to
the UN system and do not think it inutile to spend a relatively small
amount of time preparing and submitting information to a mechanism which
is designed to save lives - it could have a big impact.  

We urge you to take a few minutes also to have a quick read of this
email and the attachment, and if you don't object to the contents,
please add your name to the cause.

Who is behind this appeal?
The Global Human Rights Clinic is a newly formed international
collaborative which aims to provide opportunities for students, recent
graduates and new practitioners to gain practical experience in human
rights work.  
Did you just go google us and get no results?  Not surprising * we
don’t have a website yet, it is still under development!  We do have
a Facebook page, so if you want to join in the conversation, interact
and keep up to date with our activities, please join us at: 
www.facebook.com/GlobalHumanRightsClinic (
https://www.facebook.com/GlobalHumanRightsClinic )
The Global Human Rights Clinic aims to build collaborative teams that
include participants from a variety of different universities, to
encourage cross-institutional learning and skill-sharing.  The initial
focuses of the Global Human Rights Clinic are to:

* build on its pre-existing competencies and develop participants’
skills and experience in the UN human rights mechanisms;
* enhance the capacities of law schools’ international human rights
programs to teach and understand the role of the international human
rights system in relation to domestic human rights advocacy and law
reform; and
* work with NGOs and other advocates to facilitate and expand their
access to the international system.  
Through relationships between experienced human rights advocates,
international lawyers, UN experts and others, and the students,
researchers, and other learners in the Global Human Rights Clinic, the
Clinic aims to facilitate connections and networks that will deepen and
expand the possibilities for many of the advanced participants to
contribute to their field, and open doors and expand opportunities for
the newer participants to learn and gain ‘hands on’ mentoring and
practice in their chosen profession.
Our request to you
The Global Human Rights Clinic requests your support for this Urgent
Appeal by way of ‘sign on’ to our letter to the UN Special Rapporteurs. 
You can see our full letter attached, or you can access it via
http://bit.ly/TLZ5BH 

It will help to ensure that this request to these UN independent
experts will be taken seriously, and enhance the likelihood that they
will take action and raise the matter at the highest levels with the
Australian government, if we can showing that this communication is
supported by well-respected experts on the issue, such as yourself. 
To sign on and support this communication to the UN Special Rapporteurs
regarding the specific human rights concerns mentioned in the attached
letter, simply indicate your interest by emailing Claire Mahon
(claire.mahon at gmail.com) by the close of business (Australian Eastern
Standard time) on Monday 17 September 2012. Please specify whether you
would like to be added in either your individual or organizational
capacity, and if you would like your identity to be kept confidential. 
At this stage, the Global Human Rights Clinic has no plans to do any
publicity regarding the identity of those who sign on to this
communication, and indeed the fact we are submitting this communication
(short of this email and a Facebook message or two calling for
sign-ons). However, if this situation changes in the future, you have my
assurances that permission would be sought first by all supporters
before any future publicity was pursued, and requests that participation
be kept confidential would be honored.

If you know of anyone else who would be interested in signing on to
this Urgent Appeal, please feel free to forward this email to them and
encourage them to contact us. 
We look forward to hearing from you.  If you wish to keep up-to-date
with what we are doing, please “like” our Facebook group *
http://www.facebook.com/GlobalHumanRightsClinic * where we will
slowly but surely keep you in the loop, without inundating you with too
much information.
With our enormous gratitude for all the hard and necessary work you are
each doing to protect and promote human rights in our communities,
The team behind the Global Human Rights Clinic’s Urgent Appeal to the
UN Special Rapporteur on Right to Health and Special Rapporteur on
Torture and Australia’s Offshore Processing of Asylum Seekers on Manus
Island (September 2012)

How to support the Urgent Appeal:
1.    Send email to Claire Mahon at claire.mahon at gmail.com 
2.    State whether your support should be listed as individual or
organisational (include your name, title, full proper name of
organisation etc)
3.    State if you want your individual or organizational identity kept
confidential
4.    Your email must be received by COB AEST Monday 17 September 2012 
  
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