The panel, held at the United Nations Church Center at United Nations Plaza, covered a diverse range of topics including women's rights, access to water and sanitation, international human rights law, media freedom, and the rights of persons with disabilities.
Press Freedom and Civilians in Armed Conflict
Among the six panelists, international human rights lawyer Ugoji Eze tackled the perennial issue of civilians in conflict situations. “It is imperative to follow up the issue of explosive weapons,” she said, in particular reference to drone attacks on civilians.
Recently, Pakistan refused to expand the range of U.S. drone over-flights. One interpretation is that this was due to Pakistani government fears of a backlash among the civilian populations living in the proposed regions.
Epoch Times Editor-in-Chief John Nania underscored the need for accountability and independence in today’s media.
“With media having such a broad impact, being able to spread their message so widely, there is a … great potential for building an accurate picture of what’s happening in the world, and also there’s a great potential for manipulation of information and deceiving people,” he said. He added that journalists often pay the price for exposing human rights violations, highlighting the Epoch Times reporters jailed in China.
Dr. Elizabeth Carll, President of the Communications Coordination Committee for the United Nations (CCCUN) and moderator of the event, described journalists as “the forgotten emergency workers who are on the front line” when human rights are being trampled.
When it comes to bilateral country relations, both Eze and Nania agreed that human rights issues usually take a back seat to economic interests. “It appears to me that in the international community, that economic obligations supersede human rights obligations, in international public law, particularly of the United Nations,” said Eze.
The Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Also speaking on the panel was Robert Nagel, the Chief Technology Officer of the CCCUN, and perennial advocate for the rights of blind persons at the U.N. Nagel, who is blind himself. He expounded on the remarkable accomplishment that is the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the 21st century’s first U.N. human rights convention.
He offered some insight into the development of the convention, explaining that to his knowledge this was the first treaty where civil society representatives, including himself, were invited to the “informal sessions” at the U.N., where countries work out their differences behind closed doors to achieve agreement when the regular meetings fail.
See “People with disabilities are not disabled people: they’re people first, [but] with disabilities” on Page 2…
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