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ABSTRACT
Since 2008 the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism has regularly reviewed every state’s human rights record. Any civil society organisation can submit a report to the review, thus opening up participation for a wide range of organisations that had not previously directly engaged with the United Nations system. This article analyses the ways that civil society organisations (CSOs) from the Philippines and Indonesia—both countries with significant impunity problems and few options for engaging with the international legal system—have used the UPR in their anti-impunity advocacy. The article draws on documentary records from the UPR and semi-structured qualitative interviews with representatives from these local CSOs to analyse why and how anti-impunity activists engage with the process. It shows that their engagement has no measurable direct benefit but may indirectly strengthen anti-impunity campaigns by raising international awareness about the problem. Given the dearth of accountability mechanisms to provide remedies for mass atrocity in these countries, activists are motivated to engage less by evidence that the UPR tangibly addresses the impunity problem than by an absence of more effective alternatives.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Michele Ford, Jacqueline Mowbray, Melissa Crouch, Katharine Booth and two anonymous reviewers for your thoughtful comments, which greatly improved the earlier drafts of this article.
Notes
1. In this article the term ‘civil society organisation’ is also used to refer to non-government organisations. The article draws a distinction between ‘local’ CSOs—referring to those organisations that are headquartered in Indonesia or the Philippines—and ‘international’ CSOs that are based outside these countries.
2. Twenty-eight of these interviews were conducted with CSO representatives in the Philippines in October and November 2018, and 15 in Indonesia in November and December of the same year. These were conducted with permission from the Ethics Committee at the author’s university, as part of a larger project on advocacy and accountability for mass atrocity in Southeast Asia. Respondents were asked if they were willing to be identified. Where a respondent requested to not to be personally named, only the person’s organisation and role are identified. Quotation marks are used where respondents are directly quoted, otherwise responses are paraphrased.
3. CSO reports for the most recent review were submitted in September 2016. There has been a significant deterioration in the human rights situation in both countries since this time. While the interviews touched on more current issues up to the end of 2018, these more recent developments are beyond the scope of this paper.
4. Of course, CSOs have been engaging with the UN since it began. For an analysis of CSO engagement with human rights state reporting mechanisms generally, see for example McGaughey (Citation2018a, Citation2018b).
5. This is not to say that activists in Indonesia or the Philippines are disconnected from the human rights system more broadly. Activists from both countries routinely engage with Special Rapporteurs and treaty bodies, but these do not have the ability to make enforceable judgments, and so cannot provide a remedy for impunity. Perhaps the closest the UN human rights system has to this is the Human Rights Committee, which hears individual complaints about violations of the ICCPR. Of the two countries, only the Philippines has ratified the Optional Protocol which allows for the submission of individual complaints. Activists from the Philippines have made several complaints about the lack of accountability for human rights atrocities to the Committee, which has ruled in their favour. However these decisions are not enforceable and tend to be ignored by the Philippine government. See for example, UNHRC’s (Citation2007b) Communication No. 1559/2007.
6. Although this duty only arises after these countries ratified the ICCPR—1986 in Philippines and 2006 in Indonesia—some scholars argue that states are also under a customary law duty to investigate and prosecute serious international crimes (Karavias Citation2009, 305-6). As customary international law applies to all states irrespective of whether they have ratified treaties, arguably there is a duty for both countries to prosecute serious international crimes that occurred in their jurisdiction before ratification too.
7. Neri Colmenares, NUPL, interview with author, October 12, 2018.
8. For an analysis of the way some of these Filipino CSOs have engaged with the Philippine Commission on Human Rights in the course of their accountability campaigns, see Palmer (Citation2019).
9. Feri Kusuma, KontraS, interview with author, December 3, 2018.
10. Secretary General of Katribu, interview with author, October 18, 2018; Maria Sol Taule, Karapatan, interview with author, October 31, 2018; Fatia Maulidiyanti, KontraS, interview with author, December 11, 2018; Hafiz Muhammad, HRWG, interview with author, December 12, 2018.
11. Fatia Maulidiyanti, KontraS, interview with author, December 11, 2018.
12. Fatia Maulidiyanti, KontraS, interview with author, December 11, 2018.
13. Fatia Maulidiyanti, KontraS, interview with author, December 11, 2018; see also Wahyuningrum (Citation2015, 273).
14. Fatia Maulidiyanti, KontraS, interview with author, December 11, 2018.
15. Hafiz Muhammad, HRWG, interview with author, December 12, 2018.
16. Ephraim Cortes, NUPL, interview with author, October 10, 2018.
17. Galuh Wandita, AJAR, interview with author, November 17, 2018.
18. Ephraim Cortes, NUPL, interview with author, October 10, 2018.
19. Ephraim Cortes, NUPL, interview with author, October 10, 2018.
20. Fatia Maulidiyanti, KontraS, interview with author, December 11, 2018.
21. Mervin Toquero, NCCP, interview with author, October 16, 2018; Maria Sol Taule, Karapatan, interview with author, October 31, 2018; Ephraim Cortes, NUPL, interview with author, October 10, 2018.
22. Mervin Toquero, NCCP, interview with author, October 16, 2018.
23. Maria Sol Taule, Karapatan, interview with author, October 31, 2018.
24. Fatia Maulidiyanti, KontraS, interview with author, December 11, 2018.
25. Hafiz Muhammad, HRWG, interview with author, December 12, 2018.
26. Fatia Maulidiyanti, KontraS, interview with author, December 11, 2018.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Nicola Edwards
Nicola Edwards is a doctoral student at the University of Sydney, where she is funded by a Vice Chancellor’s Research Scholarship. Her research examines the ways civil society actors promote accountability in Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines.