UN Human Rights Council 38: What’s at stake for freedom of expression? by ARTICLE 19   15 June, 2018   On 18 June, the UN Human Rights Council begins its 38th Session (HRC38) in Geneva. Over the next three weeks the UN’s top human rights body will act on some of the world’s most pressing human rights violations and abuses.   The agenda is especially packed this June: it will include discussions on numerous reports of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and special procedures, many related to digital rights and freedom of expression, with many important HRC resolutions being negotiated in parallel. These resolutions will be adopted in the concluding days of the Session on 5 and 6 July, and we’ll be pushing to ensure they contain strong commitments to protect freedom of expression at the national level.   This will be a challenge. The HRC’s membership includes States that are among the worst offenders when it comes to violations of the right to freedom of expression. At a time when multilateral diplomacy for human rights is under increasing strain, ensuring that all States that believe in freedom of expression remain invested in the HRC as a venue to protect this right is essential.   ARTICLE 19 will be present throughout the Session to advocate for progressive free expression standards, and for action on serious violations of this right, to hold States to account where they are failing to live up to their obligations and commitments.   Our priorities for HRC38 include:   The situation for freedom of expression in Burundi, Eritrea, Mexico, Myanmar, Russia, and the USA, and elsewhere; Protecting freedom of expression online, including the regulation of content on platforms; Protecting civil society space, in international organisations and at the national level; Setting the agenda on freedom of association and assembly, including digital aspects of the right to protest; and Addressing violence against women facilitated by ICTs.   It is essential that the Human Rights Council delivers on its mandate to bring about meaningful change to human rights situations at the national level. Where States are failing in their obligations to protect freedom of expression, the HRC can be an essential forum to call them out, as well as for establishing mechanisms that can assist in the pursuit of accountability.   A number of UN special procedures will present annual reports relevant to freedom of expression at HRC38, including the Special Rapporteurs on freedom of expression, on freedom of assembly and association, and on violence against women. The OHCHR will also present a report on civil society space in intergovernmental organisations.   On these issues, corresponding thematic resolutions will also be negotiated and adopted, demonstrating the international community’s priorities for legal and policy action, while reflecting (and often shaping) how States understand their international obligations. While such resolutions can sometimes appear abstract, they can provide strong frameworks for action, which we can leverage at the national level to advance protections for freedom of expression.   http://www.article19.org/resources/human-rights-council-38-whats-at-stake-for-freedom-of-expression/   * ARTICLE 19 works for a world where all people everywhere can freely express themselves and actively engage in public life without fear of discrimination. We do this by working on two interlocking freedoms which set the foundation for all our work:   The Freedom to Speak concerns everyone’s right to express and disseminate opinions, ideas and information through any means, as well as to disagree with, and question power-holders. The Freedom to Know concerns the right to demand and receive information by power-holders for transparency, good governance and sustainable development. Access reports of UN Special Rapporteurs and Special Procedure holders to the 38th Session of the UN Human Rights Council via the link below. Visit the related web page
	Misery as Strategy: The Human Cost of Conflict by Caroline Flintoft International Crisis Group   May 26, 2018   U.N. denunciation of starvation as war weapon needs tough enforcement - experts. (Thomson Reuters Foundation)   A United Nations vote condemning starvation as a means of warfare is historic but will be useless without concrete steps to help millions of starving people, top experts said on Friday.   The 15-member Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on Thursday that threatens sanctions on countries that obstruct efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to avert food shortages and potential famine.   Wars dramatically worsen starvation, and about two-thirds of the 815 million chronically hungry people around the world live in conflict areas, according to U.N. food agencies.   But the resolution will “remain a piece of paper unless there is follow-up,” Jan Egeland, former U.N. Under Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.   Syria, Yemen and South Sudan in particular have erected “systematic obstruction and road blocks” to aid efforts, said Egeland, now secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council.   In Yemen, years of conflict have left roughly a quarter of its 28 million people severely short of food and at risk of starvation.   Another 6.5 million people in Syria and 5.3 million in South Sudan, both torn by conflict, also have uncertain access to enough food.   Security Council member nations can help conflict-torn regions with which they have a relationship or historic link, Egeland said.   “Too often, we humanitarians speak in abstracts, ‘Someone should act,’” he said. “Instead we need to list those who can and should act.”   The resolution recognizes the impact of conflict on food supplies and the need to protect agricultural livelihoods, said Dominique Burgeon, director of the emergency and rehabilitation division at the Food and Agriculture Organization.   Enforcement is critical, said Megan Doherty, senior director at Mercy Corps.   “The crucial next step will need to be practical application – hard diplomacy by the U.N. on those member states who perpetuate conflict that adds to the suffering of millions,” she said.   June 2018   Misery as Strategy: The Human Cost of Conflict, by Caroline Flintoft.   In conflicts across the world, levels of displacement and hunger are increasing. The tactics used by leaders, governments and non-state armed groups have much to do with that misery.   From Syria to Yemen to South Sudan, war and political crisis are causing human anguish on a scale unseen in a generation.   That conflict and crisis take a high human toll is hardly new, of course. Yet the scope of suffering today is striking. The number of people displaced globally by conflict and persecution stood at 65.6 million at the end of 2016, the greatest number since World War II. Figures released earlier this month show that there were 11.8 million new internal displacements in 2017, nearly double the 6.9 million in 2016.   The number of people facing acute hunger globally due largely to conflict and instability reached almost 74 million across eighteen countries in 2017. The trend is clear: war and crisis are destroying more lives and livelihoods, pushing more people toward starvation and driving more people from their homes.   So, what is happening? First is simply that the last decade has seen an increase in conflict and political violence. While data and definitions vary, and data deficiencies and gaps exist, studies generally point to upward trends.   But deepening human misery comes not only from more war and violence. It also comes from the manner in which many actors – whether leaders, governments or non-state armed groups – are pursuing military and political objectives.   Too often these actors gain from human deprivation. Sometimes they deliberately inflict pain on civilians, attacking, forcibly displacing or otherwise controlling populations, including by determining whether, where and how they get access to aid. At other times, they use heavy-handed military or political tactics without attention to the enormous suffering they are causing.   In wars, these patterns track broadly with violations of the fundamental principles, under international humanitarian law (IHL), of distinction between civilians and combatants, and of proportionality in carrying out attacks.   What is clear is that many of today’s conflicts – certainly major wars but also lower-intensity armed conflicts – have seen shocking and repeated violations of the rules that are meant to protect civilians in war.   This instrumentalisation or disregard of civilian harm is clearly in evidence in some of today’s worst conflicts, from Yemen to Syria to South Sudan. Such disregard is also a worrying feature of many political and socio-economic crises that fall short of armed conflict yet still produce large-scale humanitarian crises, like that of Venezuela.   Yemen and Syria   Yemen is in the throes of regionalised civil war that pits Huthi rebels against a Saudi-led coalition, allied with the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and a variety of anti-Huthi fighters, who at times fight each other. The U.S., with other Western powers, backs the internationally recognised Hadi government and provides military assistance to the Saudi-led coalition. The main protagonists all have used tactics that exact a terrible human cost. All sides have exacerbated a humanitarian crisis on an astounding scale: over 22 million Yemenis, 75 per cent of the population, need humanitarian assistance; some 8.4 million are on the brink of famine. But the Saudi-led coalition – because of its superior firepower and ability to control the land and sea approaches to Yemen, which has long depended on imports for food, medicine and fuel – bears particular responsibility.   The Saudi-led coalition’s bombing campaign has destroyed hospitals, schools and homes and resulted in untold civilian casualties. By hindering access to Yemen’s most important port, Hodeida, and closing Sanaa’s international airport (both in Huthi-controlled areas) – arguing that these restrictions are necessary to stem the flow of arms from Iran to Huthi fighters – it has prevented millions from receiving the food and other supplies they need to survive.   After completely closing Hodeida port in response to a Huthi missile fired at Riyadh in November 2017, the coalition partially lifted the blockade the following month. That move has alleviated Yemen’s plight to some extent. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also announced a $1.5 billion contribution to UN humanitarian efforts. Yet aid is a stopgap measure that cannot be a substitute for commercial imports. Both humanitarian and commercial imports into Hodeida remain well below the needed levels, due to the coalition’s continued restrictions and related bureaucratic hurdles. As it presses on with its military campaign along the Red Sea coast, the coalition threatens to worsen matters greatly with an invasion of Hodeida, as Crisis Group recently warned.   The war in Syria also has seen horrendous human suffering as a result of actions by all sides, none more consequential than those of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The regime has repeatedly used tactics that deliberately harm civilians for political and military gain. Its core strategy in taking back opposition areas has been to drain them of resources, degrade infrastructure and target civilians and rebels alike, in order to drive those who oppose it out and leave no option other than submission to regime authority for those who remain. The aim is also to send a clear message about the price of resistance.   Tactics include controlling whether and how humanitarian aid reaches civilians in need, now numbering some 13.1 million overall – roughly two thirds of the population that remains in the country and a proportion equivalent to over 50 per cent of the pre-war population. These numbers include over six million facing acute food insecurity and over two million in UN-declared besieged and hard-to-reach areas. The regime has undercut the UN’s humanitarian agencies, placing excessive strictures on their work, and regularly denies them access to civilians in even the most desperate straits.   Backed by Russian air power, government forces have bombed civilians and civilian infrastructure – including schools and hospitals – in rebel-held areas. They have also used chemical weapons against civilians. All of these tactics were on display as the regime squeezed the rebel-controlled Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta. The regime benefits substantially from this strategy, while diplomatic support from Russia mitigates the costs and protects it from external consequences. The strikes by the U.S. and its allies in retaliation for the government’s chemical weapons attack in Eastern Ghouta on 8 April may discourage such attacks, but are unlikely to change the regime’s broader calculations regarding the use of tactics that target civilians.   Rebel groups notably have carried out their own atrocities and sieges of civilian areas, if not on the same scale as the regime. Meanwhile, the Islamic State (ISIS) has used chemical weapons, albeit on a much smaller scale than the regime, and mass executions in areas under its control.   South Sudan   In South Sudan, too, parties to the civil war use tactics that either deliberately cause human suffering or show insufficient regard for their humanitarian impact.   Government troops, rebel forces and armed groups of all stripes have repeatedly attacked civilians or, through raiding and pillaging, left them without the means of sustaining themselves. As Crisis Group explained in a briefing on conflict and famine last year: “Warring parties tend to view civilians as integral elements of their enemy’s economic, political and social support system. This is particularly evident during incidents of revenge violence, when civilians are likely to be treated not as distinct and protected but as part of an armed group”.   Armed groups often try to direct aid to populations they control, while seeking to withhold it as a way to punish or demand the loyalty of populations they perceive as supporting their enemies. The government itself has sought to deny aid to populations under rebel control as a means of pressuring them to accept peace on the government’s terms (though aid groups usually have been able to negotiate access eventually).   Harassment of and attacks upon aid workers are common. Such incidents are aspects of a broader “scorched earth” approach to fighting that does not spare aid operations, medical facilities, religious institutions or schools. Fighters often double as bandits and, given the economic crisis, humanitarian aid is one of the few assets available to steal. Lawlessness, in the form of attacks on aid convoys and roadblocks set up to extort agencies, also contributes to the need for expensive airdrops of food – reducing the amount available for hungry civilians.   The peak of the annual “lean season” – when families run out of food before the next harvest – is expected over the next three months. Millions already face acute food insecurity. If South Sudanese armed actors do not create a more conducive environment for aid delivery and donors do not increase their contributions for humanitarian efforts, parts of the country risk sliding into famine this year.   A Higher Tolerance for Violence?   As these cases illustrate, the deliberate harm of civilians or the use of tactics with scant regard for human suffering are all too common across today’s landscape of war and crisis.   All the more disconcerting is that state parties and their allies almost certainly shoulder the lion’s share of blame.   It is difficult to generalise about reasons for this trend – in other words, to identify the geopolitical currents that underpin the widespread use of tactics that target or otherwise harm civilians. The conflicts are diverse as are the states involved. Indeed, it is debatable whether parties are more likely to resort to the use of such tactics today or whether their use is simply more prevalent because conflict has increased. Greater visibility of such tactics, given expanded media coverage, may also contribute. But a handful of factors appear to have helped create an international environment permissive of such abuse.   The first follows from the protracted nature of many conflicts. While today more wars tend to be intrastate, most involve outside powers and an array of non-state armed groups. It is hard to find a settlement that meets the interests of the warring parties – from the major or regional powers involved, to national actors, to local commanders that may have direct access to revenue streams and thus considerable autonomy.   Violence often spreads across wide swathes of the country, leaving few areas unaffected and few safe havens for civilians. Warfare is increasingly urbanised, with non-state armed groups embedded in the general population, which also means fighting exacts a higher civilian cost.   In some cases, as wars drag on, growing hatred and resentment, the desire to avenge abuses and, in many instances, the wish to protect financial interests that instability sustains tend to increase incentives on all sides for more brutal forms of violence, or tactics that result in greater civilian harm.   In wars characterised by mass atrocities from the beginning, the behaviour of belligerents rarely improves during the course of the conflict. Indeed, parties often point to excesses by their opponents to justify their own.   Second, mounting geopolitical tension, including among major powers, is likely to have contributed. Major powers tend to pull their punches on abuses by allies, while reserving the harshest criticisms for their enemies. Witness, for example, the disconnect in the UN Security Council on Syria and Yemen. Western powers regularly – and rightly – condemn mass violence by the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian backers. But their voices are considerably quieter on the Saudi-led coalition’s bombing campaign in Yemen. Russia, meanwhile, has tried to shift the blame for chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian regime to rebels, exploiting the fact that ISIS has also used poison gas.   Last, it is difficult to escape the fact that a decade and a half of post-9/11 Western counter-terrorism operations have played some role, albeit difficult to define precisely. Fairly or not – and undoubtedly in the service of self-interest in many cases – leaders across the world have interpreted these operations, and the militarisation of what tends to be a political problem, as a signal that draconian tactics are more permissible against their own enemies. Russian diplomats frequently cite the destruction of Mosul or Raqqa, for example, to deflect criticism of the Syrian regime’s brutal operations in eastern Aleppo or Eastern Ghouta.   Whatever the precise causes, the pervasive use of tactics that cause such civilian suffering – whether deliberately or through calculated disregard – should be a cause for alarm. It is not just a moral concern. While such tactics might serve the immediate interests of some leaders, governments or militias, the massive humanitarian crises they provoke can themselves be sources of instability and recurrent conflict. At a minimum, they inject further uncertainty into wars and crises that are already difficult to resolve. Without redoubled efforts to forge political solutions, today’s overwhelming levels of displacement, the destruction of cities, homes and infrastructure, and the hunger, destitution and trauma, likely will only grow.   * Caroline Flintoft, is Senior Adviser, Humanitarian Fallout of Conflict at the International Crisis Group Visit the related web page
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