The human rights dimensions of land form the central theme of a new report on Sudan’s performance under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) that HIC-HLRN has submitted today at Geneva. HIC-HLRN has coordinated with three Member organizations from Sudan to prepare this report for the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in its periodic review of the state party’s implementation of the Covenant.
The Social Peace Initiative for Darfur Housing and Land Rights, the Sudanese Human Rights Monitor and the Nuba Mountains International Association, representing the indigenous peoples living both in their native South Kordofan and in their diaspora, contributed valuable insight and research to the fact-filled 20-page review. The result is a critical analysis of government policies and practices that responds to CESCR’s priority issues related to three articles of the Covenant: Article 1, on self-determination and the corresponding right to natural wealth and resources; Article 11, on the human right to an adequate standard of living, including the human right to adequate housing; and Article 15, guaranteeing the human right to participate in culture.
Land administration forms a common feature in the realization of each of those covenanted economic, social and cultural rights. The HIC-HLRN report also demonstrates how land administration inconsistent with the principles and corresponding state obligations of the Covenant leads to a range of human rights violations, including those resulting from consequent dispossession and displacement from both armed conflict and development.
The report covers both of these two contexts, while large-scale mechanized agriculture and infrastructure are the principle subjects of development-induced human rights violations, according to the Sudan report. It goes far in demonstrating how development and war interplay across the country.
HIC-HLRN’s report on Sudan’s performance under ICESCR concludes with a set of recommendations: indispensable measures for the Government of Sudan to undertake in order to achieve compliance with the state’s human rights treaty obligations. It also urges CESCR to develop clear interpretation of the covenanted human rights related to land in the form of a General Comment on the subject to advise all states parties to the treaty.
The Republic of Sudan’s delegation comes before CESCR at the end of September, at Geneva, for its first review under ICESCR in 15 years. The state party has been a full ten years overdue in its reporting obligations. However, this joint parallel report marks the first occasion in which Sudanese civil society organizations have reported on the implementation of this seminal human rights treaty in their country. The “constructive dialog” between CESCR and the Sudan delegation will take place on 1–2 October 2015.
Download the HIC-HLRN parallel report on Sudan
Photo: Affected people demonstrate in Sudan, 24 August 2015, against the violation of their human rights due to the construction of Kajbar and Dal Dams.
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