A REGIONAL TOOLKIT FOR PRACTITIONERS 1 9 United Nations Council of Europe European Union Key Instruments • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), International Covenant on Social; Economic and Cultural Rights (ICESCR); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD); Convention Against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT); Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families (CRMW); and Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC); • 1954 Statelessness Convention • Various UN Principles and guidelines Key Instruments • European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) • Council of Europe Twenty Guidelines on Forced Return Key Instruments • EU Returns Directive • European Charter of Fundamental Rights Mechanisms and UN offices and Agencies • Relevant Treaty Bodies including the Human Rights Committee, Committee on the Rights of the Child and Committee Against Torture. • Relevant Special Procedures including the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Mechanisms • European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) • European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) • European Commission of Social Rights Mechanisms • European Court of Justice (ECJ) The United Nations The promotion and protection of human rights is a key purpose and guiding principle of the UN. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has lead responsibility within the UN in this regard, and offers its support and expertise to the human rights monitoring and protection mechanisms of the UN. Such mechanisms can broadly be categorised into two: 12 Charter Based bodies Charter Based bodies, which derive their establishment directly from the UN Charter and have broad mandates and universal scope/jurisdiction, such as the former Commission on Human Rights, which drafted and adopted the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and most subsequent human rights treaties. Charter Based bodies also include the General Assembly, which has endorsed many “soft law” norms relevant to detention issues and the UN Human Rights Council, which has established the Universal Periodic Review and inherited the Special Procedures mandates (independent enquiry mechanisms including special rapporteurs, special representatives, independent experts and working groups with thematic or countrybased mandates) from the former Commission on Human Rights, and adopted new ones since its creation in 2006. Of the Special Procedures, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants and the Special Rapporteur on Torture are particularly relevant to the detention of stateless persons. Treaty Based bodies Treaty Based bodies are tasked with monitoring implementation of treaties and derive their existence from a particular treaty and thus have narrower mandates – related to the treaty, and limited jurisdiction – to parties to the treaty. Treaty bodies base decisions on consensus. All the relevant core UN human rights Treaties have monitoring bodies to oversee their implementation. Many of the treaties themselves, and the work of their monitoring bodies are relevant to this Toolkit. These include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (and the Human Rights Committee), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), the Convention Against Torture or Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (and the Committee Against Torture & Sub-Committee for the Prevention of Torture), the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (and the Committee on Migrant Workers) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (and the Committee on the Rights of the Child). While the international human rights treaties themselves are legally binding instruments, the powers of the bodies established under them are not correspondingly strong, limited to making country specific concluding observations and adopting thematic general recommendations / comments. Even where such bodies have powers of investigation and/or to hear individual complaints, they can make recommendations which – while carrying significant authority, are not binding on the state. However, over the years, the work of UN HR Treaty Bodies has become increasingly authoritative. The various UN human rights mechanisms, as well as other UN bodies have contributed immensely to the growth of standards and principles through adopting “soft law” instruments. The instruments relevant to this toolkit include the UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, the UN Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty, the Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures (The Tokyo Rules) and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Deliberation No.5: Situation regarding immigrants and asylum-seekers. Soft law instruments, particularly those adopted by the UN General Assembly, are generally applicable to all UN member states, but are not legally binding.