Ireland has appeared before the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva this morning to have its human rights record reviewed.

This is part of the so-called Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The process is designed to monitor the progress of member states in implementing UN human rights treaties.
 
Representing Ireland in Geneva, Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter (pictured), said that Ireland was “fully committed to the UPR process. We view it as one of the outstanding achievements of the Human Rights Council”.
 
He added: “We pay close attention to the deliberations and observations of the United Nations Treaty Monitoring Bodies.”
 
Mr Shatter said that the Government had engaged in “a wide-ranging consultation process with civil society actors and NGOs” and “welcomed the consultations held by various civil society actors and NGOs and the consultations held by the Irish Human Rights Commission”.
 
He also pledged that the Government would hold a referendum dealing with the rights of children early in the New Year.
 
Meanwhile, the Iona Institute yesterday urged the Government to defend the Constitution when at the UPR.
 
In a statement, Iona Institute Director, David Quinn, said that it was, “commonplace for these monitoring bodies to interpret the treaties in very radical ways that is not borne out by the texts of the treaties themselves.”
 
He cited the example of Ireland’s appearance before the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) in 2008, where Irish Government officials were criticised for not bringing our abortion law into line with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The HRC said that Ireland’s law against abortion was in breach of Articles 2, 3, 6 and 26 of the ICCPR.
 
None of these articles mention abortion at all.
 
He said: “That treaty nowhere mentions abortion and it is a very big stretch to interpret it to include a right to abortion. If pressed tomorrow on an issue such as this, Ireland must stand up for our Constitution and not apologise for it.”
 
The Iona Institute also issued a briefing note ahead of Ireland’s appearance before the UN Human Rights Council.
 
The briefing note points out that Ireland is a signatory to six UN human rights treaties and that periodically it has to report to UN monitoring bodies on our implementation of the provisions of these treaties. The briefing note also points out that the interpretations of the monitoring bodies have “no legal standing in Irish or international law and therefore we are not obliged to abide by them.”
 
None of the UN treaties in question declares or even implies that the reports or comments of the treaty monitoring bodies are legally binding, the briefing note says. The briefing note urges the Government to “challenge the misinterpretation of the various UN treaties by both the monitoring bodies and by many NGOs”.