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see also Human rights and Colombia

Colombia is a sovereign state situated in South America. It is a parliamentary democracy, has been a member of the United Nations since 5 November 1945,[1] and is party to a variety of international agreements concerning human rights.[2] It also has a series of domestic laws that seek to guarantee the protection of human rights.[3] However, Colombia’s human rights record often contradicts directly with the laws and agreements to which it is bound; Colombia is widely referred to as the country with the ‘worst human rights record in the western hemisphere’.[4][5][6][7] In the UK Foreign Office annual human rights report, Colombia features as one of 20 ‘Countries of Concern’.[8]

Colombia and Human Rights Laws

In addition to its UN membership, Colombia is obliged to advance the protection of human rights through its adhesion to international laws, international conventions as well as through its own national constitution.

Colombia and The International Bill of Human Rights

Two international treaties concerning human rights were established by the United Nations in 1966: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with its two Optional Protocols and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These two treaties, together with the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR), make up the International Bill of Human Rights. It seeks to guarantee rights to all humans and determine that regardless of context or circumstance states are morally and legally obliged to ensure that its citizens enjoy these rights. Colombia signed both treaties in 1966, with their ratification being completed in October 1969. [9][10]

Colombia and International Humanitarian Law

In 1961, Colombia ratified the four Geneva conventions of 1949 that form the basis of International Humanitarian Law and the two additional protocols of 1977 were ratified in 1993 and 1995 respectively. As of September 2011, Colombia had not signed up to the third additional protocol of 2005.[11]

The Colombian Constitution

In 1991 Colombia adopted a new constitution which contains wide ranging mechanisms to seek the protection of its citizens’ human rights.[12] As well as detailing the right of Colombian citizens to fundamental rights (eg. right to life, equality before the law),[13] the constitution also mentions the right to economic, social and cultural rights (eg. labour rights, right to education, rights for groups in need of special protection),[14] as well as collective and environmental rights.[15] It recognizes special rights for indigenous populations,[16] it allows for citizens to take direct legal action against the state with a right to what is known as the tutela, it creates the Constitutional Court, and it determines the existence of posts for human rights ombudsmen. The constitution of 1991 allows, in theory at least, the human rights of Colombia’s citizens to be protected under national constitutional law.[17]

Respect for Human Rights in Colombia

Human Rights Defenders

As reported by the National and International Campaign for the Right to Defend Human Rights,[18] and as documented regularly in reports by leading human rights organisations, Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a human rights defender.[19][20] In 2010, according to the Colombian based human rights organisation Somos Defensores, at least 174 acts of aggression towards human rights defenders were committed. This included 32 murders and 109 death threats.[21] As Human Rights First reports, attacks against human rights defenders include also ‘smear campaigns and break-ins, threatening and omnipresent surveillance, physical assaults, kidnapping, violence directed toward family members, and assassination attempts’.[22]

The Colombian government meanwhile has a special protection program that seeks to protect those under threat. The Colombian embassy in Washington states that the protection program ‘offers long-term services based on specific needs of vulnerable individuals and groups’.[23] However, the figures for the first semester of 2011 showed an increase of 126% in acts of aggressions committed against human rights defenders from 2010.[24] Paramilitary groups were held responsible in 59% of the cases, state security forces were held responsible for 10% and the guerrilla groups 2%.[25] As reported in 2011 by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia and human rights organisations, the historical connection between paramilitaries and state forces continues.[26][27][28] Colombian officials have also been widely implicated in stigmatising the work of human rights defenders, often making unfounded accusations linking them to guerrilla groups.[29][30] Human rights defenders find little protection in the Colombian justice system; 784 human rights defenders were threatened, attacked or murdered between 2002 and 2009, there has been a conviction in only 10 of these cases.[31]


UN Resolution
UN Resolution


Justice for Colombia reports that between August 2010 and June 2011, there were 104 murders with direct ramifications for human rights concerns in Colombia.[32] Those murdered included human rights defenders, trade unionists and community leaders. On average, according to these figures, one murder took place every three days. State security forces were directly implicated in some of these murders including, as the New York Times reports,[33] the murder of three children by Army soldiers in 2010. The soldiers are reported to have raped a 14 year old girl before killing her and her two younger brothers. The children were discovered in a shallow grave. The judge in charge of the trial of the soldiers was murdered shortly after the case began to be heard.[34]

Labour Rights

See also Trade unions in Colombia

Colombia is widely referred to as the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist.[35][36][37] The 2011 Annual Survey of Violation of Trade Union Rights published by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) reports that 49 trade unionists were killed in Colombia in 2010, more than in the rest of the world put together.[38] According to government figures 37 unionists were murdered.[39] Between January and August 2011, 19 trade unionists have been reported killed.[40]

The ITUC reports that between 2000 and 2010 Colombia has accounted for 63.12% of trade unionists murdered globally.[41] According to Human Rights Watch in its 2011 report, most of these murders 'are attributed to paramilitaries and their successor groups’.[42] According to the National Labour School (ENS), a leading Colombian NGO monitoring trade union violence, impunity for the crimes committed against trade unionists is running at 94%. According to the ITUC it is as high as 97%.[43]



Trade union membership in Colombia has fallen dramatically since the 1980’s. According to Justice for Colombia, a British NGO campaigning for human rights and an end to trade union violence in Colombia, a combination of government policies and the continued violence carried out against trade unionists has played a significant role in this reduction. ‘Less than 5% of Colombian workers are members of trade unions – the lowest level in the Americas. Less than twenty years ago it was double that figure but violence against trade unionists, changes in the labour market and anti-trade union policies have led to a huge decrease in membership. Today only 850,000 Colombians are members of a trade union’. As demonstrated by figures from the ENS, such is the nature of the Colombian workforce, it is very difficult for the majority of Colombian workers to join a trade union: ‘of Colombia’s 18 million working people a staggering 11 million are working in the informal economy, an area that is virtually impossible to organise and where working conditions are generally abysmal. Of the remaining 7 million people (who do have formal employment) only 4 million benefit from permanent employment contracts with the remainder being on temporary contracts’.


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References

  1. ^ UN Country Profile: Colombia
  2. ^ International Geneva Conventions, ILO Conventions, International Bill of Human Rights.
  3. ^ See the Colombian Constitution of 1991.
  4. ^ Justice for Colombia, Human Rights in Colombia
  5. ^ Witness for Peace, Letter to US Ambassador to Colombia, 19 November 2010
  6. ^ Human Rights Watch, Congressional Testimony on Democracy, Human Rights, and US Policy towards Colombia, 23 April 2007
  7. ^ Press Briefing on Colombia by UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, 10 May 2004
  8. ^ The 2010 UK Foreign & Commenwealth Office Report
  9. ^ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
  10. ^ International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
  11. ^ International Humanitarian Law
  12. ^ The US Department of State Colombia Profile
  13. ^ Colombian Constitution of 1991, Art. 11 to 41
  14. ^ Colombian Constitution of 1991, Art. 42 to 77
  15. ^ Colombian Constitution of 1991, Art. 78 to 82
  16. ^ Semper, Frank, Los Derechos de los Pueblos Indigenas de Colombia, Mexico National University (UNAM)
  17. ^ Jorge Orlando Melo Gonzalez Los Derechos Humanos en Colombia, Revista Credencial Historia, Edition 156, December 2002
  18. ^ Colombia: Human Rights Defenders Under Threat
  19. ^ CEJIL Press Release, Colombian Human Rights Defenders Continue to Suffer Threats and Attacks under Santos, 23 May 2011
  20. ^ Human Rights First, Human Rights Defenders in Colombia 2011
  21. ^ Somos Defensores 2010 Report
  22. ^ Human Rights First Baseless Prosecutions of Human Rights Defenders in Colombia, February 2009
  23. ^ Colombian Embassy Protecting Labor and Ensuring Justice in Colombia
  24. ^ Defensores de DDHH en 2010: Amenazas Cumplidas, 8 August 2011
  25. ^ Defensores de DDHH en 2010: Amenazas Cumplidas, 8 August 2011
  26. ^ 2011 Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia, A/HRC/16/22, paragraph 36, 3 February 2011
  27. ^ Human Rights Watch, Paramilitaries Heirs: The New Face of Violence in Colombia, 3 February 2010
  28. ^ Amnesty International Leave us in Peace: Targeting Civilians in Colombia's Armed Conflict, 2008
  29. ^ Insight on Conflict The Stigmatisation of Human Rights Defenders in Colombia, 11 May 2010
  30. ^ National and International Campaign for the Right to Defend Human Rights, Colombia: Human Rights Defenders Under Threat
  31. ^ US Office on Colombia, Still Waiting for Justice, September 2010
  32. ^ Justice for Colombia, President Santos - The First Ten Months, June 2011
  33. ^ New York Times, Colombia Suspends 7 in Military After Children's Killings, 3 November 2010
  34. ^ Just the Facts, Terror hits Colombia's justice system, 24 March 2011
  35. ^ ITUC, Worldwide Survey: Repression of union rights and economic freedoms across the globe, 8 June 2011
  36. ^ Justice for Colombia, Anti-Trade Union Violence
  37. ^ USLEAP, Violence Against Colombian Trade Unionists: Fact vs. Myth, June 2011
  38. ^ ITUC, Worldwide Survey: Repression of union rights and economic freedoms across the globe, 8 June 2011
  39. ^ Colombian Embassy, Protecting Labor and Ensuring Justice in Colombia
  40. ^ ITUC, Asesinato de lider minero en Colombia, 16 august 2011
  41. ^ ITUC, ITUC responds to press release issued by Colombia Interior Ministry, 11 June 2010
  42. ^ Human Rights Watch, World report 2011: Colombia
  43. ^ TUC, ILO Sanctions Colombia's Poor Human Rights Record
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