REUTERS
The South African government has been slow in implementing the 153 recommendations from its Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council last year.
South Africa’s great cause at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva is social and economic rights. The South African government believes Western nations in particular put too much emphasis on political and civil rights – sometimes referred to as first generation human rights – at the expense of socio-economic rights, sometimes referred to as second generation rights, which it regards as at least equal.
This basic philosophical position has often put South Africa at odds with Western countries in human rights debates, not only in the Human Rights Council but elsewhere in the UN.
And yet, oddly, South Africa has never ratified the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “a key international treaty” that commits governments that adopt it “to address challenges of inequality, unemployment and poverty, which are critical to the strategic goals of governments”.
That was how the cabinet itself described the covenant on October 10 last year when it announced that it would at last ratify it – 17 years after signing it in 1995. Yet it has still not ratified it – which entails passing it through Parliament so it becomes legally binding.
When South Africa had its “Universal Periodic Review” at the UN Human Rights Council last year, the regular scrutiny of one’s human rights record by other countries on the council that all members endure, one of the 153 recommendations it received was that it ratify the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Other countries also recommended that South Africa ratify several other key human rights instruments, including the so-called Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture.
There was a cluster of recommendations about torture in detention, reflecting concerns about several instances of this in prisons and police cells. South Africa’s response was that it had ratified the Convention Against Torture and was preparing legislation to increase the penalties for torture. But the Optional Protocol, which it seems not yet to have ratified, gives the UN much greater powers of unrestricted access to all detention facilities to check on the treatment of inmates.
According to one informed official, South Africa was given 153 recommendations last year because it had done poorly in implementing the 22 recommendations it was given in its previous review in 2008.
South Africa rejected just one of the 153 recommendations last year – from Norway which asked it to ensure that the proposed new Traditional Courts Bill “does not violate South Africa’s international obligations or its own constitution in the area of women’s rights and gender equality”. The government dismissed this, saying the bill was still under national consultation and so it could not prejudge the outcome. Of course, Norway was merely reflecting the concerns of many South Africans, even at ministerial level, about sexism in the bill.
There were also many recommendations on gender equality and protection, to which the government largely responded that laws and other measures were in effect in the works.
Another cluster of recommendations – including one, particularly significantly, from Mozambique – urged South Africa to tackle xenophobia more forcefully.
The government’s response was that the outbreak of xenophobic violence in May 2008 had “heightened the government’s awareness and alertness” of the problem, and so it had instituted measures to protect foreigners better and it was also busy ratifying international instruments that would also increase protection.
But the recent resurfacing of xenophobia around the country, particularly directed at Somalis, suggests that these measures have not gone far enough.
Another large cluster of recommendations urged the government to do more to tackle poverty and inequality.
To these the government largely responded with generalities about its commitment to the task.
Of course, all these things take time.
Yet even within government there is frustration at the slow pace of implementation, especially when this is just ratifying international instruments already signed – hardly an insurmountable obstacle, surely.
But the failure to do so, apart from diminishing human rights protection of course, also undermines the credibility of South Africa’s often quite assertive positions, especially on socio-economic rights, in the UN and elsewhere on the international stage.
The Mercury
