Comment: Commonwealth members descend from deeds to words on human rights
14 Mar 2011, 11:00 AM
R Iniyan Ilango
Today Commonwealth Day will be celebrated across 54 countries. The association holds about a third of the World’s population. It prides itself on having high human rights and democracy based fundamental principles.
But do these translate into the lives of its 1.4 billion population, or make any impact at international fora that debate and decide rights and freedoms? Sadly even the kindest and gentlest answer would come up with a definite ‘no’.
This conclusion is once again affirmed by the latest report of The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. The third in a series entitled ‘Easier Said than Done’ the report analyses the performance of the 12 Commonwealth countries [on the Human Rights Council 2008 to mid 2010, prior to the Maldives’ membership] – Bangladesh, Cameroon, Canada, Ghana, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Zambia – who sit on the Human Rights Council. Together they also account for about one third of the body’s 47 members.
Before getting elected to the Council each had made specific pledges in the spirit of upholding “the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights”.
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