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Ireland under UN spotlight over human rights record O
n 14-15 July 2008, Ireland’s human rights record was reviewed by the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva under an important international agreement to which Ireland is party, the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Committee questioned Ireland on a wide range of important areas in which the State continues to neglect its obligations on civil and political rights under the Covenant. These include two issues central to FLAC’s campaigning, the rights of
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VOLUME 18
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NUMBER 3
ADVICE
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J U LY – S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 8
CENTRES
J u d g e M i c h a e l K i r b y o f t h e Au s t r a l i an H i g h C o u r t l a un c hi n g t he I C C P R S ha d o w Re po r t
Photo © Maxwells
ISSN 0791 4148
S e e p a g e 8 f o r d e t a i ls .
transgendered people to proper identity documents and the continued use of imprisonment as a sanction for the failure to pay a civil debt.
It also included the State’s reservations to the Covenant and the status of the ICCPR in Irish law, extraordinary rendition, abortion and the right to life, trafficking in human beings including children, detention of migrants and asylum seekers, conditions of detention in prisons, the continuing jurisdiction of the Special Criminal Court, summary removal and independent refugee appeals, dis-
crimination against non-traditional families, religion in education, funding of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC), Article 41(2) of the Constitution and the ethnicity of and discrimination against Irish Travellers. Before the review, the Committee received written submissions from the State outlining its position with regard to the rights under the Covenant, including a periodic report which the State undertook to submit on ratification of the Covenant. [continued on page 3]