Re: New Report on UN Human Rights Mechanisms

Reply-To: [email protected]
Sender: [email protected]
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 10:20:17 +0300 (EET DST)
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: New Report on UN Human Rights Mechanisms

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Panayote Elias Dimitras <[email protected]>

Re: New Report on UN Human Rights Mechanisms


Dear MINELRES-ers
 
May I add one comment to the ECRI reports?
 
The one on Greece was pathetically poor, almost as if it was written
by some pro-government agency. A mere comparison with the US DOS or
the UN reports will convince everyone that ECRI like so many IGO
dependant bodies cannot really go very far.
 
P. Dimitras
_______________________________________
Panayote Elias Dimitras
Spokesperson
Greek Helsinki Monitor &
Minority Rights Group - Greece
P.O. Box 51393
GR-14510 Kifisia
Greece
Tel. +30-1-620.01.20
Fax +30-1-807.57.67
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.greekhelsinki.gr
________________________________________

(From the moderator: I believe the problem raised by Panayote is of
great importance! Indeed, we used to rely on the reports of the kind
as on the most authoritative and impartial sources - meanwhile, are
they always completely accurate and unbiased? Some MINELRES
subscribers said the following in the private correspondance about
different similar reports and general overviews: "the part related to
my country has serious flaws while other parts seem to be quite good",
this is rather typical evaluation (I could also point to dubious
appraisals and even factual mistakes in reports about Latvia issued by
very respectable organizations)... There are quite few papers devoted
to comparative analysis of different reports on the same country or
problem. Hanne-Margret Birckenbach's excellent book about how
international organizations review the citizenship conflict in Estonia
and Latvia is one of these few exceptions. Meanwhile, these reports
used to be the main starting point for both scholars and
policy-makers. Thus, I believe if would be very useful to exchange
opinions about the real quality of similar reports! 

Boris)  

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