Commonwealth Secretariat and Human Rights

The main body responsible for human rights in the Secretariat is the Human Rights Unit (HRU). The HRU is a free-standing unit that reports directly to the Secretary-General. It has 3 staff members and is headed by Hanif Vally. The HRU has a small budget and resources and was previously a unit of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Division. It's move to becoming a free-standing unit is part of a move to revitalize the unit and give human rights related work in the Secretariat greater prominence - while it has previously been difficult to get human rights work on the agenda of the Secretariat, it is hoped that these recent changes will be positive. Overall, the HRU's work is in the promotion of human rights as it has no enforcement or investigative role. Current activities include:

• Integrating human rights work into all areas of the Secretariat's work.

• Developing programmes related to the promotion and protection of human rights. Current projects include developing strategies to combat trafficking in women and children; and the compilation of case laws related to the unconstitutional overthrow of governments. Future projects include developing consensus on standards applicable to the concept of rule of law among Commonwealth members; a pan-Commonwealth workshops on refugees to develop best practice guidelines on treatment; strengthening and monitoring national human rights institutions; and increasing the number of ratifications of the Convention Against Torture by Commonwealth members.

• Publishing information on human rights developments, jurisprudence and so on for the information and use of member countries. Examples include the Commonwealth Law Digest which provides information on decisions related to interpreting international human rights standards in national courts for the reference of those in other countries who are interpreting similar provisions. The HRU also has a newsletter called the HRU Update which includes information on a wide range of human rights developments, projects, workshops and so on.

• Working on human rights issues with governmental and non-governmental organizations (Commonwealth and other) and interacting with the UN human rights system, following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the UN Commissioner for Human Rights).

• Providing advice to the Secretary-General as needed, including on CMAG issues. CMAG has the power to suspend members for breaching the Harare Declaration, and so the involvement of the HRU potentially gives it a role in the enforcing of human rights, as well as in increasing the importance of human rights issues in CMAG's deliberations.

Other divisions of the Secretariat also has programmes that are directly related to human rights, such as the Gender Programme which promotes gender integration in the Secretariat's work and promotes women's rights as human rights. Gender concerns are also incorporated into the Secretariat's debt management programme and the work of the Commonwealth Youth Programme.

The Deepening Democracy programme is designed to implement parts of the Harare Declaration. Most of the activities within this programme - such as workshops on the Role of the Opposition, Domestic Election Observers, and Accountability, Scrutiny and Oversight - have focused on formal democratic processes, rather than broader concepts of democracy. While the Commonwealth's definition of democracy includes not just the formal government structures and procedures, but also informal participants like civil society, in reality is the structures such as the judiciary and the public sector which have been the focus of assistance rather than civil society.

The Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation is the Secretariat's main way to promote development and the alleviation of poverty in member countries, through the provision of technical assistance from one member country to another. This includes human rights training and advancing democracy in Commonwealth countries by providing specialist advisory services, training, experts and consultants to strengthen democratic institutions.

More information on the Commonwealth Secretariat can be found on their website: www.thecommonwealth.org