I would like to thank the Inter-American Commission and the distinguished Commissioners for this opportunity.

We are before the Inter-American Commission today because the Inter-American system has not shied away from difficult cases and has often blazed a trial for interpreting what human rights obligations mean.
OAS Members have a history of taking their economic and social rights obligations seriously, many use a rights-based approach and have developed monitoring structures that allows their citizens to see whether progress is being made in terms of respect for human rights when additional investments are made, for example, related to health, water, and education. In our submission, you will find a fact sheet that demonstrates this. Notably the UNDP and the UN OHCHR has cited various OAS Members as examples in the move toward accountability for the progressive realization of all human rights.

My presentation will ask why Member States have not taken these obligations and experiences with them when they intervened in Haiti. Why the international community maintains the façade that the Haitian government is in a position to provide a baseline measure of the level of respect for all human rights and to measure improvements created by additional revenues. It is unclear why Haitian government is the only entity with human rights obligations in Haiti. I hope my experience will highlight, it is time for the IACHR to clarify the human rights obligations of international interveners.
I worked in post genocide Rwanda from 1994 -1996 as the head of the Legal and Human Rights Promotion Unit of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and three years in Angola, as head of the Human Rights Division of the UN peace mission to that country.

It has become very clear to me that most discussion both political and academic regarding human rights relates to whether the “international community” should intervene in a country (e.g., whether there is a legal obligation or just simply moral or political reasons to do so). Incredibly, very little discussion exists about what the international community’s human rights obligations are once they choose to intervene.

While there has been a growing understanding of how human rights law applies to blue helmets to prevent them from torturing or raping those they have been sent to protect, the mechanism to create accountability for these violations are underdeveloped to non-existent.

An understanding of how human rights law should be considered in how Member States organize their interventions in another country and how human rights law provides a vehicle for accountability related to money spent is also underdeveloped to non-existent.

When I arrived in Rwanda, the Ministry of Justice, to a large degree tasked with responding to the genocide, had almost no infrastructure to do so. This was illustrated by the fact that they had only one vehicle which they had to push start. The UN – who many in the community at that time blamed for not doing more to stop the genocide – had a significant infrastructure and fleets of vehicles.

Traditionally, the host Member State is seen as the entity with human rights obligations. Meanwhile, the international community – multilateral and bilateral actors – have none; regardless of their relative power or ability to make change.

This struck me as odd and inappropriate. How in the age where corporations have human rights obligations; how in the age where human rights applies in the private sphere, for example in the area of discrimination; could countries that had human rights obligations in their own country all of a sudden have none when working in another – either directly or through their agent like the OAS or UN?

In Angola, my understanding grew of the need for a human rights framework to clarify peace mission priorities and to overcome silly bureaucratic hurdles to doing what was needed. The understanding of what is needed is greatly more developed than its operationalization. The OAS has already recognized in its June 2002 Declaration of Bridgetown on “multidimensional approach to hemispheric security” that political, economic, social, health and environmental factors play a role. The challenge is how to insure this knowledge is applied.

As odd as it may sound, the political and bureaucratic concerns trump human rights obligations in the organization of international missions, mainly because Member States and multilateral bureaucrats don’t think they are bound by human rights law in their interventions. This is the case for multilateral and bilateral efforts.

Because peacekeeping operations are funded through assessed contributions, these missions do not respond to the human rights situation on the ground, but to the desires of those footing the bill. These donors only want to pay for the blue helmets. In fact, usually less than 1% of the peacekeeping budget usually goes toward any project other than sustaining the peacekeeping operation.

Projects designed to improve the rights of the people in the host country are now done through voluntary contributions, where a bilateral or multilateral will work with government for on average two years before the project is implemented. The problem with this method is that normally the host government’s which have received peace mission are weak and/or dysfunctional and so don’t have the capacity to receive money. Thus, with this method addressing human rights violations looses the urgency that is merited.

For example, the International Cooperation Framework or ICF for Haiti notes that more than 1 billion has been pledged and depending on the source, between 600 - 800 million has been disbursed (or moved from one bank account to another). Neither the WB or UNDP have figures as to how much has actually been operationalized and whether this money was spent in accord with the human rights framework it mentions in its report. In fact one WB official indicated it is quite likely Haitians may ask where this money has been spent. If the Haitians don’t know where the money has been spent, it means that they were not involved in spending it – a violation of their human right to participate.

The government of Haiti simply was not trusted or did not have the capacity to receive funds. Thus, importantly most money flows from a donor directly to NGOs or corporations, but yet it is the government of Haiti that is held responsible for improving the human rights situation. Something is wrong with this picture.

At first glance, the mandate of MINUSTAH seems quite reasonable. Let me refer to resolution 1542 of 30 April 2004 in our written submission.
It discusses facilitating stability, a political process and supporting human rights.

The problem is threefold:
- There was no money to do any of it, just mainly supporting blue helmets and some civilian police, many that don’t speak the language and most without the needed skill set.

- There was no peace process in Haiti unlike the processes that lead to peace accords in El Salvador and Guatemala. Accords that served and continue to serve as roadmaps to restructuring their societies to achieve sustainable peace.

- There was a desire to hide behind a dysfunctional, corrupt and in many ways almost non-existent Transitional Government. While from a traditionalist international law perspective, it might make sense, from the realities on the ground, it did not.

The UN Peacekeeping mission to Haiti's yearly budget is larger than the entire annual budget of the government of the Republic of Haiti. Larger.

You will also find information about the size of each budget in our submission.
This is not even considering the OAS mission, the IDB, WB and all the Member States missions and projects to Haiti, nor the NGOs or corporations. Together the international community in Haiti is exponentially better resourced than the government.

All of those entities, except corporations, would accept that one of their missions is to improve the human rights situation in Haiti. And each of them is obligated to do so. In 2003 UN Secretary General called on all UN agencies to mainstream human rights into all of their activities, including instructions through “a Common Understanding” that each agency implement a rights-based approach which requires programs to be developed through consultation with local communities and be monitored and evaluated to ensure that they are participating and that the desired outcome or improvement is achieved.

While human rights goals and language are mentioned in mandates, preambles and reports (e.g., the ICF), the application is quite something different, given international intervenors do not feel bound to demonstrating measurable human rights improvement.

All accountability flows to the entity known as corrupt and ineffective – the Haitian government, while the Member States and their agents enjoy moral high ground and no accountability.

There is something wrong with this picture where Member States can pat themselves on the back and say we are going to help poor Haiti and the poor Haitians. Good intentions or PR is not enough.

Just as in general principles of law, the Good Samaritan has no obligation to intervene, but if he or she does, they are held to legal obligations.
Also in general principles of law, we find joint enterprises and joint enterprise liability. The international community is part of the joint enterprise of bringing sustainable peace and the respect of the full spectrum of human rights to Haiti. There should be shared responsibility and accountability. There is a need to clarify that Member States don’t leave their human rights obligations at home and don’t eliminate them by acting through sub-contractors like the OAS or the UN.

As someone who has worked inside UN efforts to bring peace and improve the human rights situations, having it known and understood that human rights law provides a framework and benchmark for success would be very useful. This would have helped us to restructure UN and bilateral efforts to maximize each contribution to improving the human rights situation.
In Haiti there was no hot war, but there are widespread violations of economic and social rights. Every day in Haiti people die from preventable disease and from lack of drinkable water and access to even rudimentary health care.

The need for the IACHR to clarify what are Member States human rights obligations when they intervene in another country has never been greater. The window of opportunity to measurably improve the human rights situation for Haiti has not has been closed.

Once OAS Member States are clear about their human rights obligations, they can change the way they intervene in Haiti. For example, they could advocate that MINUSTAH draw personnel from various areas of the UN with experience in working on community-based projects. These experienced individuals, perhaps working with the blue helmets or UN civilian police could actually do a lot to transform communities.

While huge projects could not be completed within the next few years, many projects could be implemented that would help transform lives and give the Haitian people some control and influence over the resources being spent in their name. This, in and of itself, is mandated by human rights law. Political participation in the decisions affecting them is fundamental in human rights law. Why it can be ignored at a time of crisis is far from clear, especially when it is the people’s participation and empowerment that can help to build the basis for a sustainable peace through laying the foundation for good governance.

It is not simply the international community’s responsibility, obviously the host Member States has significant obligations, but it is past due to begin a process to define that each intervenor has human rights obligations and those obligations need to be considered in the way interventions are structured and their impact measured.

We are therefore respectfully requesting that the Commission take the following action:

1) Conduct an onsite visit to examine the Economic and Social Rights situation in Haiti.
2) Request an advisory opinion from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to clarify Member States obligations when intervening in a country (e.g. Haiti)
3) Name an OAS Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Thank you again for your consideration and time.