International Human Rights Conference Concludes, Issues Recommendations

Participants in the International Conference on Human Rights Approach to Conflict Situation in the Arab Region stressed the need to empower individuals who belong to groups vulnerable to marginalization.
The conference also urged member states and national human rights institutions to support and facilitate the participation of all segments of society in public life, and to give priority to efforts aimed at preventing violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. It also urged the regional organization to establish a center for early warning on bases of the human rights approaches for conflicts prevention, and dissemination of human rights culture and capacity building.
Participants in the conference urged key parties to support policies and strategies aiming to disseminate human rights culture. They called on member states to review educational curricula to introduce programs designed to support human rights culture and encourage respect and tolerance.
The conference also urged United Nations bodies to provide support to strengthen the capacity of civil society and national human rights institutions to promote human rights culture.
The conference urged all conflicting parties to respect human rights and international law, and called upon all concerned parties to promote cooperation in the field of human rights.
Participants in the conference called on the international community to shoulder its legal responsibilities to stop the grave violations of human rights caused by armed conflicts or occupation.
The conference urged Member States to ensure the protection of civilians, particularly groups that suffer from exclusion and marginalization, especially women, children, the homeless and those with disabilities. 
The conference called on member states, national human rights committees and civil society to exert more efforts to ensure children's human rights, including the combating of child labor and abusing them for military reasons as well as preventing the different forms of violence, particularly against women, which is committed by government sides as well as militant non-government groups.
The conference also urged member states and national human rights committees to dedicate the appropriate resources and take the effective measures to ensure that victims of human rights violations, especially those surviving sexual and social-based violence, receive the appropriate support without discrimination, including comprehensive medical treatment, mental healthcare and psychological and legal support in a way that ensures fairness and justice.
As for delivering humanitarian aid, the recommendations stressed the need that conflict parties allow and facilitate access to humanitarian aid, including fast transit of relief shipments, equipment, and medical staff. The conference also urged member states to guarantee the protection of workers and facilities in the humanitarian field from attacks and to hold accountable perpetrators of attacks against workers in the humanitarian field in line with international standards.
In the field of education under the threat of attacks, the conference called on member states, national human rights committees and civil society to support and protect the right to education, particularly for vulnerable groups such as minorities, the internally displaced and girls, with these groups potentially being subject to danger in armed conflicts. 
In addition, the conference highlighted the need to enforce legislations and systems that prevent attacks on schools and occupying them by any entity as well as taking the necessary measures to hold accountable those responsible for such violations.
The conference urged member states to take effective steps to stop the use of schools by conflict parties, including the transformation into a military policy and operational framework of the steering principles to protect schools and universities from military use during armed conflicts. 
In the aspect of human rights during conflict settlement and peace-building efforts, the conference urged in its recommendations all key parties to support regional and international cooperation in the fields of human rights, education and conflict settlement so as to establish the culture of peace. 
The conference also called on all key sides to ensure the best possible representation of civil society groups, particularly those focusing on women issues, in peace negotiations and efforts that aim to settle conflicts and build peace. 
The recommendations requested that all effective parties implement approaches that are based on human rights when taking into consideration the drafting and execution of public policy as a tool of legal and institutional reform. 
As for transitional justice, the conference called on key entities to support the enrollment in peace agreements of commitments to accountability and the protection of human rights.
The conference recommended the involvement of children and youth in post-transitional efforts so as to address the remnants of conflicts and deal with them directly in terms of human rights. 
Additionally, the conference stressed the need for effective parties to focus on victims when planning and implementing transitional justice and reconciliation mechanisms, while ensuring that transitional justice takes into consideration the root causes of conflicts and to touch on all rights-related violations. 
The conference also urged that transitional justice be planned and executed in a comprehensive way in line with international standards. It also called for establishing a regional organization specialized in transitional justice to document and exchange proper practices. 
At the end of the conference, National Human Rights Committee Chairman Dr. Ali bin Smaikh Al Marri highlighted the positive participation that enriched the event and achieved its goals. 
NHRC organized the conference in collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the general secretariat of the Arab Interior Ministers' Council, the Arab Parliament, the Arab Network for National Human Rights Institutions, and government officials and more than 320 human rights and civil society group, besides regional and international organizations and independent human rights experts.
The conference aimed to provide a platform for an interactive discussion among concerned entities on human rights approaches toward conflicts in the Arab region. it touched on the different phases in which human rights play a pivotal role in preventing and solving conflicts.

Source: QNA