Tirana High-level International Conference

Statement by Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights

Challenges for Ombudsman Institutions with respect to mixed migratory flows
Tirana, Albania
7–8 September, 2016
Tirana International Hotel

Mr Niko PELESHI (Deputy Prime Minister of Albania)
Mr Ilir META (Speaker of the Parliament of Albania)
Mr Jacques TOUBON (General Secretary of AOMF & AOM, Defender of Rights of France, AOM and AOMF Secretary General)
Mr Igli TOTOZANI (People’s Advocate of Albania)

Colleagues and friends,

On behalf of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, I bring you the warmest of greetings and deep gratitude too for hosting, holding and participating in this Forum.

Our gratitude is to the Government and people of Albania for their hospitality and to our dear People’s Advocate of Albania whose vision, energy and professional commitment has played such an important role in bringing us here together.  And particular thanks to  - all ombudspeople here and colleagues from National Human Rights Institutions - from near and far - for making this forum your priority amidst all the demands on your time and thus affirming that people on the move are also your business.  Thank you for doing that and for what you continue to do on - a daily basis - to stand up for and speak out on human rights.

What you have enabled here – is a sharing of wisdom on the relevance of rights from within the midst of this crisis and not merely about the crisis.  A discussion on the human rights consequences of today’s large-scale, perilous and irregular migration movements is sorely needed.  Not a discussion of whether or not human rights apply – but a discussion of how human rights are to be upheld - a discussion not merely among international actors but between national actors, from within source, transit and reception countries.

After all, not since the Second World War have so many people been on the move. And yet, it is also true that through out human history - since time immemorial - people have been on the move and because of people’s movement we have discovered, created, learned, traded and birthed that which today we call globalization - globalization of economy, of information, of data and of people. 

And yet tragically, over the course of the last year or more, for the price of contemporary globalization, thousands of people have perished  - specifically along the world’s migratory routes. And uncounted thousands have suffered serious injuries, deprivation of liberty, have been met with xenophobia and discrimination as they search for a life that they may live with dignity and in which they might enjoy respect for their fundamental human rights.

When hundreds of thousands of people put their lives and the lives of their children at risk, it’s safe to assume that they feel they have no other choice.  The vast majority of those caught up in these large-scale and unsafe movements are not moving “voluntarily”: persecution, violence and conflict; biting poverty, soul destroying discrimination; lack of access to education, to essential health care or decent work; vicious gender inequality; the harsh impacts of climate change and environmental degradation; the grief of family separation?  They believe they have not other choice but to flee.  The answer is to give them other choices.  Not to deny them the only option they believe they have.

What is clear is that – however desperate - however expedient – movement does not, cannot erase your rights!  People on the move, just like people who have no movement at all, have human rights and are entitled thus also to protection.   Even when imprisoned – the penultimate deprivation of movement - still people have rights - as evidenced by the international Mandela Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.

OHCHR’s own research highlights a tragic irony that people who move out of necessity rather than from true free choice, are at greater risk of human rights violations for the duration of their journey and at their destination.

And in countries across the world, the public rhetoric about their rights? It increasingly is divisive, discriminatory and xenophobic.  And in this toxicity, increasingly States and their representatives have become complicit.

Friends, there is no “no-go zone” for rights.  No amber suspension in which rights hang fossilised and beyond the reach or call of people who are on the move.  No terrain cordoned off from rights, onto which the hapless or the desperate may wander inadvertently.

Rights are not gifts to be dispensed – they are inherent dignities – they cannot be removed, suspended or denied.  They are innate dignities - birth-rights.  Inalienable.  They do not exist separately from the fact of our existence – they rather are our very best and internationally agreed definition of what it is to exist as a human being!
So even when huddled in the narrow confines of border lines drawn neat on our maps of national sovereignties – even when poised at those international borders – even then every one of us is entitled to rights. 
The gifts of those rights flow not only to the affected individuals, they create too – thanks to years of Member States’ adjudication – tangible, operational obligations for those who are responsible for upholding rights. 
People on the move have the right to be greeted with an individual determination of our circumstances and a greeting that should be free from discrimination, violence and arbitrary detention.
And none of us should ever be returned to our country of departure or origin to face torture, persecution or under threat of other grave human rights violations.  Non-refoulement - a long established, tried and true norm of international human rights law - applies without discrimination to us all including to all migrants regardless of status, standing or circumstance.  And not matter our legal standing, we have the right to essential services. 
The practical implications of these obligations are clear: That detention is never in the best interests of the child on the move. That reasonable accommodation should be provided for persons with disabilities on the move. That pregnant women on the move should have access to quality maternal and reproductive health services and to adequate pre- and post-natal care. That rescue and immediate assistance to all migrants in distress must be ensured. That all responses to large movements of migrants must be effectively monitored to ensure that there is no negative human rights impact, and that all migrants must be able to access legal recourse – to justice.
Friends, rights are but textual descriptions of how the State, through its building blocks of public policy and law, can produce the necessary habitat for human beings. Policy, law, practice that do not uphold rights are not fit for human beings.

And yet today, humans on the move - migrants - face harsher and harsher control measures, fewer regular entry channels and increasing restrictions on their options for safer movement - compelling many to seek out perilous irregular channels. 

It is a fallacy that walls and fences will stop migration; that criminalising irregular entry deters desperate people from seeking safety; that the militarisation and externalisation of borders are an effective measure of ‘migration control’.

Walls within the human family, on a small and distressed planet in a globalized world, with the largest population of youngest people in all of human history?  Such walls are untruths, irresponsible, unconscionable.  In this, there is no country in this interconnected world that can stand apart, stand silent or not be at the table of solutions.  And yet, why are so many states that are home to migratory “push” factors so silent on the causes and why are there countries home to migratory “pull” factors speaking in betrayal of rights.

Dear friends, in many ways we all are standing at a cross-road.  These borderlands mark out stark public policy choices and challenge our determination to stand up for fundamental principles. Capacity to manage those demands is under strain, as it was in the post WW2 war period, but a crisis of people in flight from hate and violence must not be met with a crisis of compassion.

Shall it be our generation who migrates away from the human rights principles gifted to us out of the horror of WW2?   Shall it be us who will cross that precious line to take that path of indecent descent into intolerance, exclusion and hatred? 

Or will we uphold for our children and their children that for which every country - every people - liberated from tyranny has fought?  Can we not agree to turn our back on exclusion and not on people?  Shall we commit to take that other path – one paved long ago with principles forged in the toughest of times – the path paved with universal principles of non-discrimination, equality, justice and dignity?

At this cross road stands a guardian of hope – a watchperson, sentinel for rights and protector too of those most vulnerable to denial of their humanity.  And that is the ombudsperson and the national human rights institutions. 

It is you who can provide us the moral compass for human rights based public narratives and for actions that retain humanity in migration.  You can advocate on behalf of those migrants most at risk of being left behind. You can protect individuals from systems and practices that could violate their rights and you can ensure that States are held to account when they fall foul of their obligations.

As the incomparable Nelson Mandela expressed it, “to deny any person their human rights is to challenge their very humanity”:  You can influence duty bearers to choose the path of humanness of humanity; a path that leads us to policies and practices which ensure that all people on the move are treated as human beings first and foremost.

You can also use your unique, independent, impartial and influential voice to call above all for a fundamental change in the public narrative on migration. To reject the politics of fear and the advocacy of hatred, and to build instead a different vision – a vision of inclusive, diverse and welcoming societies - societies that are stronger not despite the presence of migrants, but because of them.
That is why we cannot afford to have you silent.  We cannot leave it to political elites alone to voice the hopes, aspirations, values and obligations of their countries.  Along side civil society, ombudspersons and national human rights institutions must stand out – must speak out. 

And, dear friends, the Tirana Declaration which you are forging, and I trust adopting, here could not be more timely.  We need this multi country, in-country voice – your clarion call for accountable, principled, legal, public policy on migration.  And we need it now.  In less than two weeks time, the UN General Assembly will hold a High-Level Meeting on migrants and refugees – it can be a forum to raise the standards of implementation and to close the human rights protection gaps people on the move are facing.  But to succeed we must create a clear expectation on our leaders that they uphold humanity.   They must advocate for principled, more coherent, rights-based migration governance at global, regional and national levels.  They must reject the politics and semantics of fear and exclusion, and instead to come together and stand up for migrants’ human rights and for our common humanity.

Like the Tirana Declaration, the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants must issue a clarion commitment to comprehensive, human rights-based migration and asylum governance measures: transparent and accountable, migrant-centred, participatory and inclusive, rooted in law and founded on rights. 

Dear friends, whenever in human history, a single nation, society, group or political affiliation has sought - on the basis of their identity and privilege – to elevate themselves above others – has argued for protection only of their privilege – has sought to impose their fantasised superiority through denigration of the other – always the passage of time has brought to them, and to us, only shame and deepest regret.

But to resist such inhumane politics we need and we deserve brave principled leadership.  The vile leadership of the fascist states of World War 11 understood well how easy can be the descent into xenophobia, racism, and hatred.  In the course of his interviews in preparation for the Nuremburg trial, Herman Goering explained that no matter your political ideology, you can easily drag people down that path to hate. His toxic recipe?  He explained - All you need to do is point to the pain that your people feel, explain to them that it is because they are under threat; identify for them who is the source of that threat is and then denounce those who “threaten”!  Under that logic, he explained - all manner of things can be excused.

The world’s answer to the horror born of Goering’s logic of course was the United Nations and the UN Declaration of Human Rights.  Born not in times of leisure or prosperity, but from the ashes of humanity’s self destruction. 

Friends, once again there are fundamental principles at stake: You don’t have to like me to respect my rights.  I don’t have to agree with you to uphold your rights.  You don’t have to be like me, for me to protect your rights.  Rights are not a system of endorsement or appreciation – they are not an award or a test result nor a beauty parade.  Rights are for the best and for the worst of us.  For each of us – to the exclusion of none of us in the interests of all of us. 

In this, we must stand together and for that we need therefore loud and clear the courageous independent and impartial voices of ombudsman and national human rights institutions the world over.