Source： Taiwan Today  03/12/2012 Legal experts and activists called on the ROC government March 9 to fast-track legal amendments so the country’s laws will conform with two international human rights covenants ratified by the Legislature in 2009. Up to 29 percent of all local laws considered to be in contradiction of the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are still waiting to be amended, according to Kao Ying-cheng, an attorney and member of the nongovernmental Judicial Reform Foundation. “All laws were supposed to be amended within two…

Human rights groups yesterday welcomed the legislature’s ratification of two UN human rights conventions on Tuesday — 42 years after their signing — and called on the government to turn the treaties into national policy. “The Taiwan Association for Human Rights welcomes the ratification of the two important international treaties on human rights,” association secretary-general Tsai Chi-hsun (蔡季勳) said, adding that the ratification was a milestone in the campaign to improve human rights protection. Tsai was referring to the legislature ratifying the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,…

From 1999 to 2006, from an Alliance for the Promotion of a NHRC to nothing, Taiwanese people and civil society witnessed the fail of one promising party which vowed to set up a National Human Rights Commission(NHRC). The Democratic Progressive Party turned out to be feeble when faced with criticism and self-contradictory when asked to follow the Paris Principles. The first party alteration didn’t seem to move human rights work as much forward as everyone expected. And the 2008 newly elected party, Chinese National Party (KMT), doesn’t seem to realize that human rights standards don’t change with the transition of…