INTERNATIONAL LAW COMMISSION

Crimes Against Humanity Treaty Update: Victory!


ILC members 2017-2021 and Secretariat, PHOTO by Antoine Tardy

Email from:
Jessica Stern | Executive Director, OutRight Action International  
Lisa Davis | Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Human Rights and Gender Justice (HRGJ) Clinic, CUNY School of Law & Senior Legal Advisor, MADRE

This past May, the International Law Commission (ILC) officially adopted a new version of the crimes against humanity treaty and removed the outdated definition of gender. Success! Due to our efforts, the ILC has affirmed that the rights of women, LGBTIQ persons, and other marginalized groups are protected in international criminal law, which will have ripple effects across national laws and future legal mechanisms for years to come.

In April, a report from the treaty's Special Rapporteur summarized the comments from States and civil society and recommended removing or revising the definition. Based on this recommendation, the treaty's Drafting Committee, in its latest report, specifically noted the significant number of comments from States and our movement concerning this definition, and opted to remove it altogether... 

SOURCE: E-mail, 26 June 2019 ; PHOTO

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CONCEPT FOUNDATION REQUEST

Request for midwives, nurses and ob-gyn testimonies on abortion services in Africa



The Concept Foundation is an international non-governmental, not-for-profit organization, based in Bangkok and Geneva. Their work is helping to increase availability and access to high quality, low cost, generic sexual and reproductive health (SRH) medicines to women in low – and middle-income countries. Globally, they assist partners with manufacturing, quality certification, registration and market introduction of pharmaceutical products, including medical abortion pills, with assured quality at the lowest possible cost.

Florence Erb, Program Officer on Access to Safe Medical Abortion would love to hear from you and your experiences; she is looking for midwives, nurses and ob/gyn testimonies on abortion services and post-abortion care services in Africa. The Foundation is collecting these data to complete country recommendations. 

She is also looking for safe abortion care providers participating at the International Confederation of Midwives Conference in Namibia in September. 

Please contact her through SKYPE: florence_erb  or E-MAIL: ferb@conceptfoundation.org

WEB: www.conceptfoundation.org

UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEWS: NGO WRITTEN CONTRIBUTIONS



35th session of UPR (Jan-Feb 2020) – Deadline for NGO written contributions to the UPR stakeholder report is 18 July 2019 for the following countries:  Kyrgyzstan, Kiribati, Guinea, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Spain, Lesotho, Kenya, Armenia, Guinea-Bissau, Sweden, Grenada, Turkey, Guyana, Kuwait.

36th session of UPR (Apr-May 2020) – Deadline for NGO written contributions to the UPR stakeholder report is 3 October 2019 for the following countries:  Belarus, Liberia, Malawi, Mongolia, Panama, Maldives, Andorra, Bulgaria, Honduras, United States of America, Marshall Islands, Croatia, Jamaica, Libya.

FURTHER INFORMATION: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/Pages/NgosNhris.aspx  

SOURCE: UN Human Rights - Civil Society Weekly Update No. 26 (3 July 2019)

ECUADOR / GUATEMALA / NICARAGUA

“You’re not supposed to go to health centres and end up in prison” 
 (Karen Duque, Public Defender, Ecuador)


I’ve also been raped. And you? 

On 29 May, reproductive rights groups in Latin America petitioned the UN Human Rights Committee on behalf of four young Latin American rape survivors who were forced to carry their unwanted pregnancies to term and become "mothers against their will". The girls are from Ecuador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. They were younger than 14 years old when they were raped, two by relatives and one by a local parish priest.

The petitioners included Planned Parenthood Global, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Center for Reproductive Rights and national rights groups (not named). In Ecuador and Guatemala, about 5,000 girls age 10-14 give birth every year, while in Peru four girls under 15 give birth every day.

In Ecuador, unsafe abortion accounts for more than 15% of maternal deaths. Until recently, abortion was considered a private matter. Between 2009 and 2014, Ecuador’s public defender recorded 40 cases of women prosecuted for abortion. Since 2015, according to government data, prosecutors have investigated at least 378 cases, including eight in January 2019 alone.

SOURCES: Al Jazeera, by Reuters News Agency, 30 May 2019 ; PHOTO: Dolores Ochoa, AP ; The Nation, by Zoë Carpenter, 17 May 2019

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GUYANA / JAMAICA

Abortion has been legal since 1995 in Guyana but many still don’t know that



A few weeks ago, I participated in a Safe Abortions Advocacy session held by the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association. Led by Sherlina Nageer, I found the session particularly informative on the various ways unsafe abortions are promoted due to dangerous cultural attitudes, economic circumstances and limited to no access to services and information.

Abortion has been legal in Guyana since 1995 with the passing of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act. The Act permits abortion for any reason during the first eight weeks of pregnancy if done by a licenced medical practitioner. After eight weeks, abortion has to be approved by two medical practitioners to be accessed. Later abortions usually happen due to medical complications or where continuance of pregnancy can cause mental harm in cases of rape, incest or other trauma. A child of any age and also a woman of any marital status can seek abortions on their own legally. 

Although abortion has been legal for twenty-four years, we still have many who do not even know that it is legal, as they have no access to information on contraception and abortion. Lack of information resulted in the unsafe abortion deaths of several young women over the years. 

SOURCE: The Minority Report, Stabroek News,  by Akola Thompson, 21 June 2019

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FRANCE

“The French Senate isn’t exactly a progressive chamber…”



On 7 June 2019, the French Senate adopted a bill increasing the upper time limit for women to have an abortion on request from 12 weeks to 14 weeks. Laurence Roussignol, the French Socialist Party Senator who presented it, said: “There is no scientific consensus on a necessary time period” within which to access a safe abortion and that the change “represents an improvement in the sexual and reproductive rights of women”. 

However, although the bill was passed, only 22 senators were there to vote. On 11 June, motivated by a conservative party motion, the Senate agreed to hear the bill a second time. This time, it was voted down by 205 votes to 102. Senator Roussignol accused French President Macron’s party of siding with the conservative side of the chamber to prop up an uneasy alliance.

SOURCE: France 24, by Jean-Luc Mounier, Catherine Bennett, 13 June 2019. En français ; Global Abortion Policies Database: France ; VISUAL: MFPF

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