Why ratify the civil rights covenant?

Why ratify the civil rights covenant?

Ridarson Galingging
Jakarta

The government is expected to ratify the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The ratification
will make the ICCPR a binding legal instrument that can be
enforced domestically.

But what is it that makes it crucial for the current
government to ratify it? Indonesia in fact already has human
rights laws, a Human Rights Commission, and apparently, is the
only country in the world to establish a human rights (ad hoc)
court.

The ICCPR, which was adopted by the UN in 1966, is one of the
most important international legal instruments for human rights
protection. This covenant regulates how states should treat their
own citizens by applying a single global standard of human rights
norms.

The ICCPR is a basic "human rights code" and some of its
provisions have become international customary law referred to by
judicial bodies worldwide when human rights are being discussed
or cases decided.

This human rights treaty contains fundamental rights ranging
from the right to life, freedom of thought, conscience and
religion, due process rights, protection of the family and
children, rights of political participation and minority rights,
among many others.

Ratification will reflect a strong commitment by the
government that Indonesia is serious in its effort to promote and
protect human rights domestically and internationally.

Ratifying the ICCPR will mean that when the country talks
about human rights, Indonesia will join the rest of the world and
use a "universal human rights language", not its own version of
human rights, often used in the past by Indonesian state
officials and judicial bodies.

The government will also show its readiness to face legal
claims from its own citizens and the international community
whenever it fails to obey and enforce the ICCPR provisions.

Thus the ICCPR will be complementary to the incomplete rights
contained in the 1945 Constitution, and it also provides
alternative forums for Indonesian citizens who can claim that
their constitutional rights have been violated by the state.

If the government wants the country to have stronger human
rights mechanisms, it should also ratify the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court (ICC) that criminalizes individuals
who commit war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

The ratification will not bring all the legal changes needed
overnight. Human rights are complex, and violations involve the
military, entrenched power interests, and an existing anti-human
rights culture.

Indonesia still has a lot of work to do in order to integrate
the values and norms contained in the ICCPR into the country's
domestic legal system and institutions.

Many laws and regulations need to be amended. ICCPR training
should be provided to judges, prosecutors, attorneys, and the
police. The state also needs to allocate funds from its already
limited budget to support all these programs that will promote
the ICCPR.

A further consequence of the ratification is that the
Indonesian judiciary and judges need to familiarize themselves
with the decisions and jurisprudence of the world's leading
judicial bodies such as the European Court of Human Rights, the
Inter American Court of Human Rights, and the Human Rights
Committee, which is the ICCPR monitoring body.

To make the ratification impact be felt directly by every
individual citizen, the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR
should also be ratified. The ratification of this Protocol will
make it possible for individual citizens to file a direct
complaint to the Human Rights Committee if they feel that a
domestic judicial body's decision violates ICCPR provisions.

The government will be required by the ICCPR to submit
periodic reports to the Human Rights Committee on how far the
country has put into practice all its commitments to bring all
its laws and regulation in line with ICCPR provisions.

There are certain issues that will be the focus of the Human
Rights Committee later if Indonesia ratifies the ICCPR. A
relevant example that would be the subject of scrutiny would be
the imposition of flogging as punishment in Aceh.

Indonesia needs to justify its consent to the imposition of
flogging as a punishment by Aceh local authorities. The
justification is required because in 1997 the UN Commission on
Human Rights stated that "corporal punishment [such as flogging]
can amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, or even
torture."

The practice of "freedom of religion" in Indonesia would also
be questioned, related to the application of Article 18 of the
ICCPR. Indonesia only recognizes five "official religions". The
existence of other religions outside of these five official
religions is not tolerated. How then will the government respond
to the ICCPR provision that recognizes every individual's right
to freely practice his or her religion or beliefs whatever that
religion may be, even if it is not an "official" or "recognized"
religion?

Despite all the above-mentioned obstacles that will certainly
not be easy to overcome in the short term, Indonesia,
nevertheless, will gain several legal and political advantages by
ratifying the ICCPR.

Ordinary Indonesians will get access to alternative forums to
address their human rights problems when domestic laws,
institutions and procedures fail to guarantee and protect their
ICCPR rights.

The Indonesian judiciary and judges will be challenged to
produce pro-human rights decisions and jurisprudence if they
don't want to see their decisions scrutinized and reviewed by the
Human Rights Committee.

The Indonesian legal system will be challenged and forced to
conform to the ICCPR provisions and the system's image will thus
(finally) be improved at home and abroad.

The writer (r-galingging2004@law.northwestern.edu) is a
lecturer in law at Yarsi University in Jakarta and a doctoral
candidate at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago.