Press Release
Wednesday 11th May 2016
Ireland has “case to answer” on abortion, disabilities and detention, says ICCL.
Ireland’s independent human rights watchdog, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has said that Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald TD, has a “clear case to answer” on behalf of the new Irish government at the UN in Geneva.
Executive Director of the ICCL, Mr Mark Kelly said “This afternoon, at the UN Human Rights Council, country after country has called on Ireland to revise its restrictive abortion regime, provide a clear timeframe for enhancing the rights of people with disabilities and improve monitoring of conditions of detention.
Ireland’s UN peer countries clearly recognise that our laws with abortion are well out of kilter with our international human rights obligations. Many UN member states have also taken the floor to criticise the very protracted delay in ratifying two key UN instruments: the Detention Monitoring Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. There is now a clear expectation that the Tánaiste will provide a concrete timeframe for review of our abortion laws and ratification of these two key international instruments.”
ENDS
Note to editors
Strong recommendations for abortion law reform have come from countries including Canada, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovenia and Uruguay.
On the need to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities from countries including Canada, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Montenegro, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Slovenia, Sweden, Thailand, Togo, the U.K. And Uruguay.
And on the need to ratify the detention monitoring protocol to the UN Convention against Torture from countries including Germany, Hungary, Lebanon, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Panama, Togo and the Uruguay.