APPENDIX 15
Letter from Mr Michael Dun to the Clerk
of the Committee on Annual Report on Human Rights, 26 October
1999
You invite comments and I should like to take
the opportunity to, yet again, lament the absence of attention
that The Crown Dependencies receive with regard to International
Treaties and Human Rights obligations in particular.
For many years I have been trying to establish
the most basic dialogue between The Foreign Office (or The Home
Office) and myself with regard to reporting obligations (ILO,
UN notably) and The Channel Islands and Isle of Man.
I enclose a recent copy of yet another Home
Office letter (dated 18th October and signed DPC Jones) which
replies to my continuing attempts to discover when reports under
ICCPR and ICESCR are to be considered by the UN and when it would
be appropriate for NGO's to make comment.
It will be appreciated that unless such information
is made available to the public in The Islands then the reporting
process can only be incomplete.
For the Committee's further information I enclose
a copy from The Appendices of The "Europe after Maastricht"
report (1993)[1]
in which I expressed similar views about the ignorance and confusion
surrounding the application of international treaties to these
Islands. This situation has not improved.
It is significant that in Jersey there is no
legislation in place to discourage discrimination of any kind
and that the UK Government must be considered negligent with regard
to its international obligation by failing to ensure that inhabitants
of these territories enjoy the protections that are considered
minimal in other places.
1 Not printed. Back
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