13/01/2010

Conectas Human Rights, a non-governmental organization with the mission to promote the enforcement of Human Rights and the Democratic Rule of Law, particularly in Latin America, Africa and Asia, hereby makes this statement to lend its support and proffer commentary on the 3rd National Human Rights Program (NHRP 3).

The preparation of National Human Rights Programs and Plans was agreed by 171 nations, Brazil included, as part of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted at the UN World Conference on Human Rights in 1993. Brazil has, therefore, complied with this international commitment by preparing three editions of the National Human Rights Program – NHRP I (1996), NHRP II (2002) and NHRP 3 (2009).

In its role providing technical support to help countries prepare these National Programs and Plans, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has emphatically urged that they be prepared in a participative manner and in consultation with civil society.

Accordingly, Conectas salutes Brazil’s Special Ministry for Human Rights (SEDH), and personally Minister Paulo Vannuchi, for the initiative to launch this third edition of the National Human Rights Program, and also for the participative and transparent preparation process.

There is today a consensus in the international community, reaffirmed in treaties and compacts to which Brazil is party, that the enforcement of human rights is only possible if they are considered in their integrity. This integrity refers to the indivisibility and interdependence of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. Therefore, a national human rights program that is not cross-cutting, embracing all these rights, would doubtless be incomplete.

The NHRP 3 presents some significant advances for the realization of human rights. So, based on the areas in which Conectas operates, it is appropriate for us to point out the following items it addresses:

1)    The need to combat institutional violence, with an emphasis on the eradication of torture, lethal police violence and prison fatality;
2)    Ongoing production and publication of statistics on the occurrence of crimes and offenses, their investigations, trials, convictions, remand and convicted prisoners, and detention system capacity;
3)    Strengthening the Public Defender’s Service and independent ombuds services;
4)    Support for a bill providing for civil union between people of the same sex.
Furthermore, given the “prevalence of human rights” in Brazil’s international relations, as stated in Article 4, II, of the Brazilian Constitution, it is also worth highlighting the importance of the following aspects of the NHRP 3:
5)    The monitoring of international and regional commitments assumed by Brazil concerning human rights;
6)    The definition and institutionalization of the flow of information and the people responsible in the federal government and state governments for the preparation of periodic reports and for complying with the recommendations emanating from the UN and the OAS.  

Conectas recognizes the historic importance and supports the initiative of establishing a Working Group charged with developing a bill for the creation of a National Truth Committee to examine the human rights violations perpetrated in the context of political repression. Only a country that deals sincerely with its past will be able to build a real and lasting democracy.

(Nº.1/2010, January 13, 2010)