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Promotion and protection of human rights: human rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms
Send
Sixty-second session
Item 72 (b) of the provisional agenda
A/62/225
Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on human rights defenders
This report focuses on the right to protest in the context of freedom of assembly. It builds upon and deepens interrelated issues addressed in previous reports of the Special Representative, particularly her report to the General Assembly at its sixty-first session (A/61/312), which focused on the right to freedom of assembly in relation to activities of human rights defenders.
The introductory part of the report suggests approaches to unpack the elements of the right to protest and clarifies that the Special Representative looks at the right to protest mainly from the protection aspect, in accordance with her overarching function of protecting defenders and their right to defend human rights. In the first part of the report she analyses the legal framework for the protection of the right to protest at the international and regional levels as well as the case law and the work of monitoring mechanisms. This part of the report illustrates cases presented to both international and regional mechanisms and shows how the different systems complement and reinforce each other.
The second part of the report analyses the work of the Special Representative in this area, particularly her protection role exercised through the communications procedure. In order to give prominence to the protest element of the analysis, the information is organized on the basis of: (a) “groups of protestors”, i.e. women defenders, student activists, trade unionists and defenders working on the rights of lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual persons; and (b) “thematic areas” of protest, i.e. the anti-globalization movement, demonstrations linked to elections, peace demonstrations and protests linked to land rights and environmental claims. The analysis also highlights the role of human rights monitors and journalists in documenting demonstrations and the risks and violations they face. The use of these categories allows, on the one hand, capturing major worldwide trends in present-day protests and, on the other hand, paves the way for the identification of specific protection gaps addressed by the Special Representative in her conclusions and recommendations.
The Special Representative states that the right to protest is a fully fledged right, which entails the enjoyment of a set of rights internationally recognized and reiterated in the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. These rights include freedom of expression and opinion, freedom of association, freedom of peaceful assembly and trade union rights, including the right to strike. Complying with the right to protest in the context of freedom of assembly entails both the negative obligation of refraining from interfering with peaceful protests and the positive obligation of protecting rights holders, including human rights defenders, in the exercise of their right to protest. The Special Representative argues that in addition to these obligations, respecting and fulfilling the right to protest entails the obligation on the part of States to take deliberate, concrete and targeted steps to build, maintain and strengthen
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