Second reading of the draft General Comment on the right to peaceful assembly

Published on 23 Mar 2020, 01:19 PM

Human Rights Committee - 128th session - March 2020

A group exercising their right of peaceful assembly. Photo credit: Adobe Stock

The Human Rights Committee started the second reading of the Draft General Comment on Article 21 of the ICCPR, the right of peaceful assembly (LINK).

The Committee invited all stakeholders to provide their comments on the draft, and several regional consultations were organised in Geneva, Beirut, Mexico, Bangkok, Johannesburg, and others. The Committee received more than 100 submissions: 21 from states, 11 from UN agencies, 12 NHRIs, 13 academic institutions, and 54 from civil society and others. Before the suspension of the session, the Committee held two stakeholders’ meetings, one for member states and one for other stakeholders. The opportunity for oral engagement of States was a new one.

Opportunity for States to provide oral input

During those meetings, the Rapporteur, Mr. Heyns, explained why article 21 was chosen: mass demonstrations have played a major role in shaping societies in the 20th and 21st century, but much can go wrong, affecting other fundamental rights.

Some States, including the US, made comments regarding the regional jurisprudence that the Committee sometimes refers to in the draft. They would prefer that the Committee only refers to the text of the ICCPR. Since Switzerland has an authorization regime that functions like a notification system, they found it important to say explicitly in the draft that the practice is more important than the terminology. Pakistan made comments regarding the use of lethal weapons, and Israel asked to remove the reference to autonomous weapons.

As a response to some of these concerns, the Committee said that the General Comment serves a dual purpose: to interpret the obligations of states, but also to identify good practices. And for this last reason, they draw on experience and wisdom of other experts and bodies. Moreover, the Committee refers to regional jurisprudence in a significant part of its individual communications.

Comments from other stakeholders

In the meeting for other stakeholders, more than 15 NGOs expressed other concerns. Many of them focused on online or digital assemblies: not only is the online world a new place for people to assemble if they can no longer do so physically, but digital means can also be a powerful tool to facilitate offline assemblies. That is why meaningful access to internet is a necessary precondition for the right to peaceful assembly.

Another aspect that was stressed by several NGOs, was non-discrimination. This includes not only the discriminatory denial to assemble through the law, but also the discriminatory use of force, and discrimination to facilitate assemblies. Civil society asked for more explicit references to equality and non-discrimination, and to specific vulnerable groups including children, human rights defenders, women and others, while making clear that those lists are not exhaustive. This is to make invisible groups visible, and to make the general comment an important advocacy tool.

First meeting to discuss content of the draft

The Committee was able to discuss the first seven paragraphs of the draft before the suspension of the session. The Committee agreed to stick to the language of the Covenant, where possible, and to include more references to non-discrimination and digital means to assemble.

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