A United Nations High Commission for Human Rights representative has commended Jamaica’s international human rights record while challenging the country to ensure that the safeguards translate into real protection.

Maarit Kohonen observed Tuesday that Jamaica had signed on to a number of key international human rights instruments.

“This means that Jamaica has undertaken a significant responsibility to protect and promote a wide range of human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural for all in Jamaica,” she told a human rights conference in Mandeville.

The conventions she referred to included the:

. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)

. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)

. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)

. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); and

. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and its First Optional Protocol on children and armed conflict.

“The question we need to ask however is, how are these international instruments implemented at the national level? Has the Constitution been brought into line with Jamaica’s international human rights obligations? Has legislation been adopted to give effect to international human rights obligations?”

Kohonen was addressing the symposium on human rights put on by the Northern Caribbean University (NCU) in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice.

She, however, did not attempt to assess Jamaica’s human rights performance locally.

More precise coverage of Jamaica’s human rights situation came later in the plenary session of the symposium from Professor Stephen Vasciannie, director of the International Affairs Division in the Attorney General’s Department.

Vasciannie pointed to the intense “challenges” Jamaica faced in observing human rights when there were nearly 1,500 murders in the society last year and where there appeared to be a growing belief in vigilante justice because of perceptions that “the law is not working or it is too slow in getting convictions”.

This was compounded by low rates of murder cases solved by the police.

There were also perceptions in some quarters that the police sometimes killed people unjustly and there were a myriad of other challenges facing the delivery of justice that had to do with issues of inadequate resources and ingrained attitudes, despite an adequacy of laws and a basic framework of justice, Vasciannie pointed out.

The two-day symposium is examining the impact of human rights on various areas of the society including the disabled, the environment, criminal justice system and the administration of justice, the rights of the child, HIV/AIDS and social and cultural issues impacting human rights in the country.

– bellanfanted@jamaicaobserver.com