The Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, speaking on Tuesday at the publication of her 2019 report, evoked the image of “a Europe circling a roundabout, uncertain about its direction and the human rights obligations”.
A wandering accentuated, she stresses, by the pandemic which “is exacerbating long-standing problems and emphasising the weaknesses of Europe’s human rights protection system”.
Five of the themes addressed in this report illustrate this backlash inflicted by the health crisis: the growing political and social acceptance of racism, contempt for the rights of migrants and refugees, threats to women’s rights, the repression of protest and, finally, the erosion of the independence of the judiciary. Not to mention the risks posed by the unregulated use of digital technologies and artificial intelligence.
“Once the pandemic is under control, however, states will have to redouble their efforts to solve long-standing shortcomings in law, practice and discourse”.
Read the 2019 Annual Activity Report of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights: https://bit.ly/2RWDNof (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)