International human rights experts urged Taiwan this week to become part of the international human rights system by stepping up its participation in NGO groups and establishing its own human rights institutions.
"Formal international procedures are closed to Taiwan because of the peculiar situation [between China and Taiwan], but the international NGO community is not closed at all," said Ayo M.O. Obe, president of the Lagos-based Civil Liberties Organization -- the oldest human rights group in Nigeria.
"In fact the international formal situations and mechanisms are very much driven by international NGOs. And so I think the local [NGO] groups, in addition to working very hard [to bring about the] establishment of a national human rights institution, should also increase their links with international groups," said Obe, who has been very active in international human rights NGO activities.
"That is to say, one should not say because the last stage is closed, one shouldn't participate in the other stages," she added.
A broad range of international guests from Japan, Australia, India, the US, Nigeria and Hong Kong gave various perspectives and recommendations during a three-day international conference on human rights, which concluded yesterday.
"Their sharing of experiences with Taiwan's human rights advocates has given much impetus to the country, which is seeing a movement toward human rights promotion," said Peter Huang (黃文雄), a pioneer of Taiwan's many human rights initiatives and also one of the initiators of the conference.
During the forum, hosted by Soochow University, a prominent subject was the organization and functioning of national human rights institutions. These institutions have been an important part of the UN's initiatives to implement human rights in countries around the world in the 1990s.
Organizers of the event have said that, to a great extent, the aim of the conference was to introduce the experiences of other countries in setting up national human rights institutions to Taiwan. They hope this will help Taiwan in its ongoing process to establish such an institution.
Nisuke Ando of Japan, a former chairman and current member of the UN Human Rights Committee ICCPR, outlined principles for setting up national human rights institutions based on the UN's human rights instruments -- citing the 1993 "Paris Principles" in particular.
Ando, who is assisting in the creation of Japan's national human rights commission, indicated appointments to the institution should be politically neutral and its financial independence should be guaranteed.
In regard to its functioning, the international law professor at the Doshisha University of Japan said the institution should play an advisory role to the executive and the legislature on the incorporation and implementation of internationally recognized human rights standards.
Moreover, he pointed out the institution should be able to receive complaints from individuals concerning human rights violations and investigate the complaints if necessary. He noted, however, it should not intervene in the independence of the judiciary.
Ravi Nair, of India, executive director of the New-Delhi-based South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center, encouraged Taiwan to stand out as an example for all the governments in the Asia-Pacific region by establishing a model national human rights institution.
Nair, who has institutionalized the Asia-Pacific Forum on National Human Rights Institutions, said many of the already functioning national institutions are neither independent in their relationship to the government, nor are they pluralistic with respect to their membership.
He cautioned Taiwan to be aware of the importance of independence for a national human rights institution to function properly. Similar cautions were made by Ronald Wilson, former president of the Human Rights Equal Opportunities Commission in Australia, who indicated during the Taipei forum that it was a challenge faced in his own country.
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