Pax Romana 1st Session 29/07/2003

Pax Romana ICMICA (International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs) is a networking catholic NGO, whose purpose is to organise internship programs and to inform other NGO (mainly from southern countries) of the UN Human Rights mechanisms.

This morning session was presented by Mr. Anselmo Lee and Mr. Raj Kumar and started with a recapitulation of the main topics presented yesterday in the opening session, and in the first session of the working group on administration of justice. Clarifications were made on these key issues: terrorism, death penalty, Iraqi war, women and children abuse, multilateralism, and the role and future of the Sub-Commission on Human Rights. After some questions and discussions on these issues, more details were given on the functioning of the Sub-Commission, its relation with the Commission, the member designation, and on the election of the chair and the vice-president.

The people participating to the Pax Romana session emphasised the fact that, in comparison with the 54th session of the Sub-Commission, few new arguments were put forward. The NGOs participating this morning tried to elaborate their strategy according to this feature: to have a greater impact, they should present new subjects, or at least, new approaches. Another important contribution of Pax Romana to the participating NGOs was a briefing on how to make an oral intervention.

For Abel Chikomo (from the NGO "Media Monitoring Project", Zimbabwe), this session was very instructive: not only were main points recalled, but it prepared for the forthcoming sessions. Mr Chikomo thinks that this kind of reunion is helpful because it provides access to all the information delivered during the formal sessions: there is too much information in a small amount of time, and he could not attend to the whole sessions. Moreover, it is the opportunity to ask questions and clarifications. For instance, after having learned this morning that he can discuss specific issues with the experts, Mr. Chikomo will try to sensitise them to the Human Rights problems he is concerned with. But the important point for him is that he now knows how to use the UN organs.

Mr. Anselmo Lee explained to the participants how to summarize all the information they collected during the recapitulation of the orientation seminar. The Sub-Commission, depending from the UN through the Commission on Human Rights, is about the Promotion, the Protection and the Prevention of the Human Rights (PPP). The different actors are: the independent experts, the Governments, the NGOs, the UN Agencies and the Intergovernmental Organisations, the Press and the Secretariat. The rule at the Sub-Commission is that only the independent experts can vote. The roles of the NGOs are multiple: they have to provide the information, to make interventions, and to lobby and draw special attention to some "ignored" issues. The Governments have the role to defend themselves, and the independent experts have the role of jury. The 26 experts are presented by regional consultation, nominated by Member Governments and elected for four years by secret ballot by the CHR.
Mr. Raj Kumar introduced then the agenda item 2, which was to be discussed during the afternoon session.

As from July 30 until the end of the Sub-Commission, the daily briefing of Pax Romana will last from 9 to 10 each morning. The program will include the presentation of the debate of the previous day (working group on agenda item), the reporting about lunch briefing meetings, visit and/or other relevant activities, the introduction to the agenda item/issues of the day, and the division of tasks/responsibilities.

By: Isabel Deconinck, Sabrina Labbé, Alicia Pary and Melvina Araman

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