Canada's Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review

UNCLAS GENEVA 000117


DEPT PASS TO L/HRR, DRL/MRLG, IO/RHS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS:PHUM, PREL, UNHRC-1
SUBJECT: Canada's Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review

Summary
--------------


1. On February 3, an 18 member delegation from the Government of
Canada led by Deputy Justice Minister John Sims, participated in the
Human Rights Council (HRC) Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working
Group "interactive dialogue." During this three hour session,
Canada described its actions to protect human rights and received
extensive questions and recommendations from governments. Pursuant
to normal UPR processes, on February 5, the HRC Working Group issued
a report regarding Canada, containing 68 specific recommendations
for consideration by the GOC. Canada will appear again in June
before a plenary session of the HRC to discuss the report and
announce which of the recommendations it accepts.


2. To make initial preparations for the US Government's December
2010 UPR report and Working Group presentation, the Assistant Legal
Adviser for Human Rights and Refugees and Mission Geneva policy and
legal staff attended Canada's sessions, met with senior UN
Secretariat staff, the UK and the Danish Missions on the UPR
process, and held an "after action" briefing with the Canadian
Government following the conclusion of Canada's Working Group
process. This cable describes the Canadian process and some of the
highlights from those private meetings. End Summary

An Overview of the UPR Process
--------------


3. The General Assembly Resolution creating the Human Rights
Council (60/251) decided that the Council would "undertake a
universal periodic review . . . of the fulfillment by each State of
its human rights obligations and commitments." It further provided
that the "review shall be a cooperative mechanism, based on an
interactive dialogue, with the full involvement of the country
concerned." Three times each year, the Human Rights Council holds
Working Group sessions for the UPR.


4. For each country, the working group review is based on three
written documents: (1) a twenty page national report by the country
being reviewed; (2) a UN Secretariat staff compilation of NGO
comments; and (3) a UN Secretariat staff compilation of treaty body,
special procedure and other UN documents related to the human rights
performance of the country under review. For each country, a
"troika" of representatives from three Council Member States works
with the Secretariat and the country in question to facilitate the
review. Prior to the review, countries may provide advance written
questions and recommendations to the Troika, to be transmitted to
the reviewed country no later than 10 days before the working group
session. The principal action by the working group is a three hour
"interactive dialogue," where the country presents its national
report and addresses questions from human rights council Member and
Observer States. Representatives from civil society do not speak
during this part of the process.


5. During the interactive dialogue, countries present both
questions and recommendations for action by the country. During the
two or three days between the interactive dialogue and the adoption
of a report on the country by the Working Group, the secretariat
staff and the Troika consult with the country on the drafting of the
report, which includes a list of the recommendations made by states
during the interactive dialogue. At the end of this stage of the
process, the working group holds a very short meeting (typically 30
minutes or less) in which it adopts the report.

Canada's Interactive Dialogue
--------------


6. In a three hour, well attended interactive dialogue, Deputy
Justice Minister Sims and his delegation presented the Canadian
report and answered questions. Pursuant to the rules of the
session, Canada was given exactly one hour to speak, with the rest
of the time devoted to short (i.e., two minute) statements,
questions and recommendations by Human Rights Council Member States
and Observers. (Comment: Typically Member States have three
minutes to make their statements from the floor, while Observers
have two minutes. Given the unprecedented number of States wanting
to make comments and offer recommendations, the Chairman decided to
allow all States (irrespective of membership status) only two
minutes to speak. The HRC maintains a large digital clock at the
front of the room, which kept track of Canada's 60 minutes and
individual countries' two minute interventions. Several delegations
commented on the unfairness presented by such long speakers lists:
in such a situation, some States who have signed up to speak during
the interactive dialogue may not, in the end, realize their
opportunity to do so if they find themselves toward the end of the
list and time has run out for State interventions before their turn
is due. Furthermore, only those States who actually make statements
and offer recommendations from the floor will be allowed to have
their recommendations reflected in the Working Group report for the
state under review. Therefore, States that have not had the
opportunity to comment from the floor are also effectively excluded
from having their recommendations noted in the report. This is an
issue with which the HRC will inevitably have to contend, given the
rise of concerned voices on this development.)


7. Opening Statement. Canada opened the meeting with a twenty
minute statement. This statement was a broad overview of human
rights enforcement in Canada. (Comment: A Danish diplomat later
privately stated that, given the limited amount of time countries
are given to answer the hundreds of questions posed to them, Canada
would have done better to have not given such a broad overview, but
to have begun to answer specific questions it had received from the
Troika prior to the session. Canada explained after the session
ended that it was difficult to answer specific questions, both
because it received some from the Secretariat only a week before the
session and because only seven countries had shared questions in
advance through the Troika, as contemplated in the UPR procedures.
End Comment.)


8. Following the opening statement, the chairman posted a list of
69 countries that wished to ask questions and present
recommendations. Given the strict three hour time limit for the
session and the rule that the country under review is given one full
hour to speak, the Chair informed the countries that each would be
given only two minutes to make its intervention. In practice, the
chair was not strict in prohibiting longer interventions.
Accordingly, only 45 of the 69 countries wishing to speak were given
the opportunity. The questions and recommendations of the other
twenty-four countries were not included in the UPR report or in the
list of recommendations for Canadian consideration. (Comment:
Should the USG decide to participate in UPR sessions as an observer
in the future, if it wishes to ensure that there will be time to
speak, it will need to ensure that it sends someone early to wait in
line to sign a speakers' list. On the Thursday interactive dialogue
for Cuba, only 61 of the 102 countries that wished to speak were
able to do so.)


9. Questions for Canada fell into several categories, many of which
will also be relevant for the United States:
-(a) procedures for dealing with terrorist suspects and whether they
involve improper racial profiling;
-(b) treatment of people in detention, including women and
juveniles;
-(c) the need for increased measures to prevent and punish violence
against women (including indigenous women) and the fact that
Canadian law does not create a special criminal offense for domestic
violence;
-(d) improving the domestic consultation with NGOs and First Nations
within Canada for writing the UPR report, for considering
recommendations going forward, and in implementing Canadian human
rights obligations generally;
-(e) high levels of poverty and other economic and health
disparities within Canada, especially as they apply to racial
minorities and indigenous people;
-(f) instances of harassment and racial discrimination of racial
minorities, including people in Muslim and Arab communities;
-(g) the treatment of foreign workers (including recommendations to
ratify the UN Migrant Workers Convention);
-(h) a wide range of recommendations related to indigenous peoples,
including developing a national action plan, improving their
socio-economic conditions (including housing, education, health and
employment),settling land disputes, and changing its position with
respect to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
and consider ratifying ILO Convention 169;
-(i) various recommendations to ratify virtually every human
rights-related treaty to which Canada is not currently a party
(including enforced disappearances, the protection of people with
disabilities, the optional protocol to the Convention Against
Torture, the Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights and
several International Labor Organization conventions;
-(j) use of force by law enforcement officers, including the use of
electronic "tasers" as a restraining/control device;
-(k) immigration procedures and implementation of Canadian
non-refoulment obligations related to torture;
-(l) make economic, social and cultural rights directly enforceable
in Canadian courts; requests by some to reconsider its decision not
to participate in the April 2009 Durban Review Conference;
-(m) questions related to the death penalty, particularly Canada's
decision to stop seeking clemency as a blanket policy for Canadian
nationals sentenced to death in countries that apply the death
penalty consistently with international law (e.g., the United
States);
-(n) improving ways to implement human rights obligations by
Provincial authorities; and
-(o) activities by the Canadian armed forces in Afghanistan and in
situations outside Canadian territory in which it might be an
occupying power.


10. Following its initial statement, Canada spoke three additional
times at thirty minute intervals to respond to country questions and
observations. During these interventions, the Canadian delegation
addressed issues in thematic clusters, such as racism, treaty
ratifications, and immigration processes. At the end of the
Session, Canada used its remaining twenty minutes to answer
remaining questions and to summarize generally its human rights
policy.

The Working Group Report and Next Steps
--------------


11. In the two days following the interactive dialogue and before
the thirty minute Working Group session that adopted the UPR report
for Canada, the Canadian delegation worked with the Troika
(comprising the United Kingdom, Azerbaijan and Bangladesh) and the
UN Secretariat staff in the writing of the report. This brief
summary of the behind the scenes process is based on conversations
with the Canadian participants, UK Mission staff, and with Senior UN
Secretariat Staff (Human Rights Council Secretary, Eric Tistounet).
As a principal element of the report is reducing to writing the
myriad recommendations emerging from the interactive dialogue, the
Troika on February 4 shared with Canada both the list of questions
and, later in the day, its attempt to summarize the Canadian oral
interventions.


12. Although countries under UPR review are not supposed to edit
recommendations made to them, they are given wide latitude to help
the Troika and Secretariat edit them into more logical categories.
Countries are also given wide latitude to correct the report of
their own remarks at the interactive dialogue. Accordingly, Canada
worked late into the evening on February 4 to put the many country
recommendations into more logical thematic categories and to edit
and, in some instances, substantially rewrite the description of
their oral presentation. In the morning of February 5, the
Secretariat and Troika asked countries to review the recommendations
attributed to them for any last minute editing.


13. Adoption of the UPR Report. At the end of each UPR Working
Group process there is a short, largely pro forma, session dedicated
to the adoption of the UPR report. The reports themselves provide a
summary of the interactive dialogue (which include statements by the
country under review and the comments of the other states) and a
section on "Conclusions and/or Recommendations." In the case of
Canada this section only contained recommendations and no
conclusions. Although countries under review are free during this
session to announce whether they intend to adopt any particular
recommendations, countries are increasingly following the approach
of the United Kingdom, which during its review simply said that it
would evaluate all of the recommendations and inform the Council
subsequently of which recommendations it would endeavor to
implement.


14. On February 5, the Canadian report was adopted with a very few
final editorial suggestions by those governments that had not yet
given changes to their recommendations. (Countries who spoke are
given two weeks to provide revisions to the sections in the report
more generally describing their interventions. However, any final
changes to country recommendations must be made at the time of the
adoption of the Working Group report.) Canada, following the UK
approach, announced that it would study these recommendations
carefully in collaboration with its provinces and in consultation
with its civil society. It will provide its responses in advance of
consideration of the Canadian report before the plenary session of
the Human Rights Council in June of 2009.

After Action Assessment
--------------


15. On the afternoon immediately following adoption of the Canadian
Report, Assistant Legal Adviser Harris, and U.S. Mission Pol and
Legal officers met with the Canadian Government participants to
discuss what, in their view, had been successful in their writing
and presentation of their report and what things they would do
differently in the future. Canadian participants said that their
principal conclusions were that they wished they had started the
process of writing the report earlier than they had. They also
noted that they were criticized for not having a substantive
consultation with Canadian civil society and First Nations until
after it had submitted the Canadian report to the HRC. With respect
to the staffing of their delegation at this session, they
underscored the importance of having a high level delegation on hand
that can respond comprehensively and authoritatively on questions
presented during the session. That senior level participation is
especially important as Canada will have only four months to
evaluate which among the many recommendations it would be able to
implement. As such implementation in many cases would require
changes in federal and provincial law and the expenditure of
significant resources, having senior level leadership in Ottawa
seized of the issue will be imperative to allow Canada to respond
positively at the June HRC session. Other observations will be
conveyed less formally to the State Department action officers
working on UPR.


STORELLA