Last Thursday, October 17, the 142nd session of the UN Human Rights Committee was held in Geneva, to review the human rights record of Pakistan. A handful of students at the Geneva Academy, including myself, had the opportunity to attend the event at the invitation of our professor of human rights law, Hélène Tigroudja, one of the independent experts who comprise this UN body. The UNHRC’s purpose is to periodically review the implementation and adherence of state parties to the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It is thus a principal institution for ensuring that human rights not only exist on paper but are also turned into practice.

Taking place in the impressive Palais Wilson at the Geneva lakeside, the meeting featured more than three hours of extensive debate between the Committee and the Pakistani delegation. The issues on the Committee’s Pakistan agenda were critical. Apart from failing to prosecute and ensure judicial protection for victims of violations, Pakistani authorities appear to have committed a range of widespread human rights violations in the past month alone. These include an increasingly violent crackdown on political dissent including detentions without trials, mistreatment and torture of alleged terrorism suspects. Moreover, there has been a sharp rise in blasphemy-related violence, which has seen individuals accused of blasphemy being attacked or killed extrajudicially. A topic of special concern is the already decade-long practice of enforced disappearances, so an individual’s deprivation of liberty while sealing their fates.

Within a matter of minutes of the meeting’s start, Committee members unleashed a long list of detailed questions which sought to go to the core of the issues on the agenda. The committee members’ tone, however, was not necessarily indicting or judging, but rather like extending a firm hand for cooperation to get to the bottom of the present issues. “I don’t see any female members in the delegation, I hope this is a mere coincidence”, committee member W. A. M. Bassim noted when addressing the systemic gender inequality and widespread domestic violence and in the country. Especially on the domestic legal level, the committee had many inquiries. How have Pakistan’s domestic courts applied remedies for human Rights violations under international law? How does the delegation justify the compatibility of the death penalty for minor offenses in their legislation with ICCPR Art. 6? Why is there no criminalization of rape in all settings, including marriage? Especially, the Committee asked for a thorough explanation on how the government would ensure that the Anti-Terrorism Act would not be abused to target human rights defenders and minorities, also in relation to enforced disappearances.

After a 15-minute break, it was the Pakistani delegation’s turn to answer the committee’s inquiries for 60 minutes. First, Punjab Assembly Speaker Malik Muhammad Ahmed Khan, who led the delegation, extensively quoted provisions of the Pakistani constitution, which in his view reflected and implemented the core content of the ICCPR. He especially pointed to Art. 25, which states that all citizens shall be equal before the law contains non-discrimination on the basis of sex. Especially, he cited this provision in relation to concerns of non-discrimination of minorities and women’s rights. Notwithstanding the limited applicability to these issues, he omitted to mention the Article’s subparagraph, which gives the state discretion to make special provisions for the “protection” of women. Next, the delegation presented some steadfast commitments and legal improvements on establishing support facilities for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, internal accountability for police violence, and improvement on climate change legislation, the consequences of which had affected Pakistan devastatingly this year. This included an answer to the comment of one Committee member stating that the first female Supreme Court judge and minister had been appointed recently. “The glass is half full”, concluded one of the delegates, summarizing that there had been some improvements, but a lot of work remained to be done.

The pressing issue of enforced disappearances was met with a peculiar answer. On one hand, Pakistan vowed to continue collaboration with the UN working group on enforced disappearances, even attributing to their prohibition the status of jus cogens. The country’s delegation also stressed that it has sent monetary support packages to families, including access to counseling services. But ironically, afterward a delegate added that upon investigation, almost half of the cases reported recently had been “voluntary” or “fake” cases, where persons went missing because they were hiding, deceased due to accidents, or left to another city without informing their relatives.

The most effective improving measure, from the point of view of Pakistan’s delegation, was the often-mentioned National Committee of Human Rights, established in 2012 and entrusted with government oversight. According to the delegates, it can hear all complaints related to maltreatment in detention, gender-based violence, and enforced disappearances. The HRC members, however, sincerely questioned its effectiveness and independence: Committee member Tigroudja assessed that the organ is not in line with the Paris Principles, namely that the organ is fully equipped to prosecute violations committed by officials, such as the police, through the national justice system, rendering it toothless.

At the conclusion of this first session, the debate was set to continue the next day to lead to a conclusion and follow-up recommendations. In my personal view, the collaboration and exchange of information worked well. It was at the least inspiring to witness these efforts between the UN, representing the common values of human rights, and the Pakistani government to improve the situation in the country. It seems like a step in the right direction to stay in dialogue with state parties to the Covenant and offer collaboration, instead of putting them on a “public trial”- after all, Pakistan received its second recommendation overall, having joined the ICCPR only in 2010. As such, we could see the UN Human Rights Council in action as a mediator between civil society and human rights organizations on the one hand, and the government on the other.

Nevertheless, despite the delegation responding to many of the questions posed and seeming serious in its commitment to improving, the impression persists that without proper data on the effectiveness and judicial records on the punishments for violations, as well as lacking independent oversight, much of any commitment could remain empty words — possibly even a shameless exercise of what some observers have notoriously called “bullshitting,” undermining the very essence of such a meeting. However, at the end of the day, the ICCPR is a binding international agreement for Pakistan, and at least the discussion on these issues and bringing forward legal arguments is, by way of the Nicaragua case, in principle strengthening international law. Even so, a law without proper enforcement will not change the reality on the ground for victims of human rights abuses seeking justice.