The First Step toward International Human Rights Standards

Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR) welcomes Taiwan’s ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) on March 31. The government signed the two covenants in 1967 but failed to ratify them in the following 42 years due to the changes of international relations and local political rivalry.

After Taiwan was forced to withdraw from UN in 1971, more than 23 million people were left out from the protection of international human rights mechanism and isolated from international human rights development. Although Taiwan is now not a member of UN, TAHR still expects the subsequent impacts on promotion and protection of human rights after the ratification.

Since the Taiwanese government has shown its resolution on bringing the domestic legislation to meet the international human rights standards by pushing the ratification, TAHR is thus eager to see the full implementation of the two covenants in the future. We particularly attend to the following articles:

1. Article 6: Right to life.
Right to life is the inherent right and the fundamental right of all rights of every human being. The right is protected by law and cannot be deprived arbitrarily by any means. According to this article, the states parties should progressively implement abolition of death penalty and practice alternative policies. Taiwan, as a country moving to its four-year moratorium, is no exception.

2. Article 21: Right to assembly.
Right to assembly is the fundamental right for people to convey their opinions. It is acknowledged in the ICCPR that “the right of peaceful assembly shall be recognized. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right”. However, the amendment bill of the Assembly and Demonstration Law proposed by the Executive Yuan has infringed this acknowledgement. We therefore urge the Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan to amend the bill in accordance with the ICCPR, to fully protect the right to peaceful assembly.

3. Article 40: The obligation to submit reports.
It is laid down in the ICCPR that the States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to submit reports on the measures they have adopted and on the progress made in the enjoyment of those rights. TAHR urges relevant sectors to take this obligation seriously, to make sure the reports as a mechanism to review progress and gaps of implementation of the two covenants.

We also call on the government to establish the national human rights commission promptly, as the monitor mechanism of the two covenants and other human rights matters. The movement of establishing the national institution led by civil society and TAHR has approached to its first decade, but until now it remain lacking positive response from the government.

Furthermore, we are concerned over the regulation in the enacting law of the two covenants which authorizes the Executive Yuan to decide the date of execution. We fear that whether the implementation of two covenants might be delayed because of the administrational indolence. We urge the government to provide a timetable of bring forth the implementation, to prove its determination of adopting the international standards.