Thursday, April 16 2009

Calls for the Declaration of Port-of-Spain to be made available grew louder yesterday at the Civil Society Forum of the Summit of the Americas aboard the vessel Carnival Victory.

An official from Amnesty International described the unavailability of the document for delegates to scrutinise as “disappointing and unacceptable”.

Speaking during the break for questions Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International, Canada stressed that it was critical for delegates to have access to a recent version of the Declaration since it was unacceptable for them to be at the discussion stage and be expected to work with a document ten months out of date.

“If we don’t get access to something more up to date then the nature of our discussions here will be undermined and the appropriateness and effectiveness of the recommendations we put before the foreign ministers are equally undermined,” Neve said.

His contribution was in response to a statement made earlier in the session by Hazel Brown, co-ordinator of the Network of Non-Governmental Organisations for the Advancement of Women who said the document available online was from last July.

Neve also criticised the region’s tardiness with ratifying various human rights treaties. He said if all the human rights treaties were considered collectively the rate of ratification was below 50 percent.

“We come to this Summit decades into the Organisation of American States and many of the human rights treaties have been around for some time now but the rate of ratification for the hemisphere is dismal.”

Neve said there had to be “strong language” in the Declaration to be signed by heads indicating that governments committed to doing something about their ratification record. Neve said if this is not backed up by announcements from member states then many in civil society will view their commitment to human rights as only rhetoric.