IN THE KNOW
THE FORMER United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) established the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) in 1991 to deal with the increasing practice of arbitrary detention.
The WGAD is composed of five independent experts on human rights tasked to investigate cases of arbitrary detention, including instances in which states imprison or detain people in a manner that violates the law or without respecting due process guarantees.
The group holds three sessions a year, with each session lasting between five and eight working days.
In fulfilling its mandate, the WGAD may undertake country visits, decide individual complaints of arbitrary detention, investigate specific cases, and submit urgent appeals to states.
The WGAD is also the only nontreaty-based UN human rights body to investigate and decide individual complaints.
The system allows for information to be brought to the group’s attention about poten- tially arbitrary deprivations of liberty.
The group may investigate the case, make a decision and adopt an opinion on whether an individual has been detained arbitrarily or not.
They may also submit an urgent appeal to the states.
In 2006, the UN General Assembly established the Human Rights Council, which assumed all the mandates of the UNCHR, including the WGAD.
In 2013, the council extended the mandate of the WGAD for a further three-year period.
The current members of the WGAD are Seong-Phil Hong from Korea, Jose Guevara from Mexico, Setondji Adjovi from Benin, Leigh Toomey from Australia, and Vladimir Tochilovsky from Ukraine.
Among the high-profile cases considered by the WGAD include those of Burmese prodemocracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, East Timor Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, Iranian cartoonist Manoucher Karimzadeh, Venezuela Judge Lourdes Afiuni Mora, Ethiopian opposition party leader Birtukan Mideksa, and Syrian hu- man rights activist and former Judge Haitham al-Maleh.
The most recent meeting of the WGAD was held in Geneva from Aug. 31 to Sept. 4, discussing more than 30 cases of alleged deprivation of liberty from 21 countries.
The latest opinion of the WGAD, released on Sept. 18, was addressed to the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, urging the immediately release Leopoldo Lopez, national coordinator of the political party Voluntad Popular.
Lopez was sentenced by a provisional judge to 13 years for allegedly committing crimes of public incitement, conspiracy, damaging public property and arson.
Aside from immediate release, the group recommended the granting of full redress, including moral and material compensation, as well as measures of satisfaction, such as a public statement of apology to Lopez.
Source: United Nations Human Rights Council website, International Justice Resource Center