The presentation of the 2014 Italian Yearbook of Human Rights, an annual scientific publication which lists Italian activity in the world in the field of human rights, was held yesterday at the Rome headquarters of the Italian Society for International Organization (SIOI). The Yearbook deals with Italian and international jurisprudence on the subject, the peace missions abroad in which the Italian Government is engaged, as well as the list of Conventions, Treaties and Agreements entered into both at intergovernmental and supranational levels.
In his speech, the Director of the Yearbook highlighted the importance of protecting and promoting human rights: “We look at our country from the point of view of integral and strong humanism. Human rights make a nation beautiful, when they are promoted and protected effectively the fullness of the rule of law is achieved". Among the guests at the presentation were Franco Frattini, president of Sioi, and Giuliano Amato, judge of the Constitutional Court.
“Cases are multiplying in which there is a serious denial of some fundamental rights - said Frattini -, such as the right to life. This denial manifests itself in systematic massacres, from ISIS, to the ethnic and religious cleansing in the Middle East - of which Christians are privileged victims - or again the situation in Syria, the new trafficking of slaves from Africa to Italy through the mediterranean. There are those who try to establish a territorial dominance that borders on a new twenty-first century totalitarianism, in the name of a blasphemous vision of the Koran".
Frattini recalled the importance Italy has in defending human rights (the fight against the death penalty and female genital mutilation, children's rights). “Italy has always been there, or almost always, but the set goals have been achieved too rarely. After the reporting of crisis situations must follow the concrete and real, practical consequences. Where is Europe in Syria, with Triton or Mare Nostrum?” thundered the President of Sioi.
The vice president of Sioi, Umberto Leanza, also intervenes on the issue of immigration between Mare Nostrum and Triton, pointing out how “the control of the maritime borders of the State must be reconciled with respect for the human rights of migrants. There is, for example, the prohibition of refoulement. Then there is the principle of safeguarding human life at sea with the obligation of rescue and rescue in case of emergency. Triton is an operation which, in violation of these principles, by not extending the intervention capacity beyond national borders, effectively becomes a system for rejecting immigration”.
Leanza also drew attention to the problem of the execution of international sentences (especially those of the European Court of Human Rights) and the adjustment of the already ratified international conventions into the state system. “Human rights are mostly rights claimed, rather than rights recognized and protected – he concluded -, in the distinction made in doctrine by Norberto Bobbio. The states must provide for the creation of sanctioning instruments and Italy must insist on the system of effective guarantee of human rights, at the same time undertaking to guarantee them internally".
In Giuliano Amato's speech, there is great space for the theme of migrants and their rights. “European pride in the field of human rights – affirms the constitutional judge – is that of those who have broken through the barrier of citizenship, establishing that rights belong to the person, no longer to the citizen (as enshrined in the ECHR). The right, therefore, belongs to both the irregular immigrant and the regular one. When I was Minister of the Interior I'm not afraid to say that the CPPs (the CIEs of the time) were a scandal. There people are detained, while in our legal system detention is linked exclusively to the commission of criminal actions. On the other hand, if the immigrants – including asylum seekers – are placed in a building in Tor Sapienza rather than in the CIEs, very heavy tensions are created with the indigenous people who are us.”
Finally, Amato concludes on the subject of religious freedom, one of the fundamental human rights, affirming the need for a positive secularism. This provides, for example, that all religious symbols are accepted and considered on the same level: "Because a nun who walks with what is in fact a veil, while a Muslim girl cannot go to school with her veil on with her peers?”.
In closing, Director Papisca gave the news that the Human Rights Council of the United Nations in Geneva is discussing the inclusion of the right to Peace for individuals and peoples. The consequent legal instrument that implements it frightens many States: among all, the United States and the United Kingdom motivate their "No" by saying that there is no such right in International Law, and that if the right to Peace were recognized, the States could not no more war. For now, Italy is carrying the banner of this evolution, even if Ambassador Serra found himself having to abstain in some votes on the subject.
The lowest common denominator of all the positions expressed in the Yearbook presentation conference is the need for a greater commitment to the control and sanctioning system in the event of human rights violations. Everyone is convinced that to achieve this goal, the growth of European integration with common policies on the front of the protection and promotion of human rights is crucial.
