Dr. Shekh Mohammad Altafur Rahman

Thammasat University, School of Global Studies | Thailand

Dr. Shekh Mohammad Altafur Rahman is a human rights lawyer and faculty member of the School of Global Studies, Thammasat University in Thailand. Born in Bangladesh, Dr. Rahman had built a professional career through voluntary services and community support program. He has been focusing on human rights and development in Asia. Rahman`s area of expertise comprises international human rights mechanisms, election and democratization, conflict transformation, emergency management, and application of human security framework. Dr. Rahman He has his PhD in Human Rights and Peace Studies from Mahidol University in Thailand.Dr. Shekh Mohammad Altafur Rahman talked about the importance of access to justice to better implement SDG 16. He underlined the challenges of measuring justice and discuss the methods of strengthening individuals` right to access just and strong institutions. Dr. Rahman also discussed in detail the components of a good and accountable governance and put an emphasis on the importance of a critical implementation process review for the SDG #16.

What is the nature of SDG #16’s access to justice component vis-a-vis the other component as in a functional modality? What is the challenge of measuring this particular component and how to overcome this situation? Goal #16 promotes peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, improves access to justice for all and builds effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. Peaceful societies and freedom from violence are both important goals and a means of sustainable development. No permanent progress can be achieved in a context dominated by violence, conflict and the threat of violence.

An effective state administration with responsible institutions, transparency and the rule of law all have an intrinsic value of their own. They constitute the basis of good governance including anti-corruption measures, and are important driving forces for development. Everyone is equal before the law and must have equal access to justice and the opportunity to exert influence and demand accountability from decision-makers. Good governance and the rule of law are fundamental components of development. Violence in all its forms is one of the greatest threats to development at both the individual and community level.

First of all, SDG #16 and the access to justice have a clear characteristic of overlapping features. It is not something that stands alone as an achievable component. Rather, it has the overlapping features with all of the targets within the scope of the SDG #16. If a society prioritize strong institutions, then it would have a clear relationship with the notion of the judicial system. Peace, extrajudicial killings, trafficking and child rights are also important components that overlap with the notion of access to justice. In that regard, the feature of overlapping is a very important characteristic of access to justice.

The second component is to understand what it means to access justice, which is not uniform everywhere in the world. The word of access itself has a very different kind of connotation, depending on where you are. For a person in a society which is more hierarchical, the notion of access is very different from the person who is living in a free society. The interpretation of access to justice itself is heavily used by the dominant political forces in the society and the country for their own benefit in many senses, and in many cases.

The indicator that is used to access to justice are targets 16.3.1 and 16.3.2. The SDG 16.3.1 is all about the idea of political crime, crime repartition and the SDG 16.3.2 is the unsentenced detainee. Reflecting on the indicators will underline the contrast with what the UN perceived as the indicator of rule of law. In the UN system, there are at least 135 indicators regarding the rule of law; the SDG #16 is only referring to two out of 135 indicators. The gap is enormous and it is very obvious that just by reporting on the criminal prosecution and the detainee, we cannot understand the whole state of accessing to justice. There are so many other issues that are relevant.

The other component of the discussion is the way those indicators are used, the collection of data for the voluntary report or the progress report which is often very much restricted in nature. The shift from the MDGs to SDGs took place to bring the development stakeholders from the narrow interpretation of development to move towards an inclusive idea of sustainable development. However, how we process these reports often focus on a very restricted way of collecting data rather than getting it from the third source or even through a civil society contribution. When this is the case, the only available source of data is the government institutions. Unfortunately, most of the government institutions are not really capable enough to provide a data support. Therefore, when there is no data, no credible information, there is little to achieve. The policy formation may not take place.

The participation and the authority of the state over some of these institutions is very important. When the state institutions provide the data, some of them would be very biased, depending on the political structure and establishment of the country. Considering this fact, a country establishment can easily be motivated to some extent to change the data. If this is the case, that means a country is assessed based on a completely wrong data, a complete incorrect set of information. When the extreme kinds of government and strong institutions are analyzed, it is observed that the judiciary is likely to be manipulated. This is exactly what is happening in many countries across the world. The judiciary, an independent pillar of the state, has been changed to be a tool of excessive power or control. It is one of the circumstances showing how the human rights are violated at the local levels.

This is an important time to reflect observations especially to those who are at the policymaking level to assess whether a policy is correct, a process is working, or a framework is really functional or not. We need to review the implementation of the SDG 16 in detail and see how it can be improved, developed and brought for a better protection of human rights and ensure everyone`s equal access to justice.

Waqar Gillani

The News on Sunday, Special Correspondent | Pakistan

Waqar Gillani is a Pakistan based journalist focusing on human rights violations, religious extremism and persecution. Gillani has contributed to a number of local and international publications The News International, The New York Times, Agency France Press, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal. Gilani was a World Press Institute Fellow in 2011 and attended the US International Visitors Leadership program for Investigative Journalism in the past. He is a founding member of International Association of Religion Journalists and currently works as South Asia representative of the IARJ in honorary capacity. Waqar Gillani discussed the role of independent and free media in implementing the SDG 16 and building strong, accountable institutions. Gillani focused on the Pakistani case, underlined that current challenges of journalism in Pakistan, and presented recent incidents regarding the violation of freedom of expression. He also put an emphasis on the role of the civil society organizations to promote freedom of expression and independency of the media outlets.

The rise of violence against journalists and right to access to information for strong institutions is an important subject for every country, but particularly in Pakistan. Pakistan is the sixth largest population of the world, which makes this subject a priority as freedom of expression is facing multiple challenges. Pakistan is working towards effectively implementing the targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

SDG 16 is particularly a prime target. Pakistan, along with the civil society, initiates strong and sustainable institutions. SDG 16.10 refers to the access to information and press freedom. There are efforts to make better laws for accessing information along with guidelines and policies for the safety and protection of journalists. However, target 16.10 specifically aims to promote access to information and freedom by making laws, policies and strengthening institutions. Target 16.10 calls to ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms in accordance with national legislation and international agreements.

Efforts are underway with the contributions of civil society organizations promoting the right to access to information. In terms of violence against journalists, however, the process is slow and there is a clear difference in theory and practice. The global media rights organizations analyses the press freedom and freedom of expression situation as not at a satisfactory level in Pakistan. The Reporters Without Borders and International Media Rights body declared in the 2020 Annual Report that Pakistan is below where it used to rank in 2019 on the World Press Freedom Index. This index considers various factors to reflect an overall score.

In 2019, different press, media and other civil society reports indicate that there have been more than are 100 attacks on media groups or media persons in different parts the country. These attacks involve physical harm, mental torture, verbal attacks and harassment through different means, especially exercising power and authority allegedly by the state- or state-owned institutions. There is a strong impression that the present democratic regime backed by the military establishment, is systematically curbing freedom and independence, particularly against the critical dissidents. Military, by and large, controls most of the media outlets of digital or TV channels. It uses the media for the news and propaganda of its own agenda in the name of national interest of the country.

Apparently, media propaganda is introduced under the slogan of nationalism and patriotism. A decent example is an online story about the alleged ethics. A recently retired, influential army general was actually published by a new online group through an old journalist. The general was quickly offered a lucrative job by the government after his retirement and later appointed Special Advisor to the Prime Minister. The media has quite miseries and exposes the realities of access to information and freedom of expression. After a certain alleged pressure of the government, all the media outlets issued a clear contradiction and clarification about the military general. Similarly, the Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan, which is a body that regulates companies, has a press officer who was appointed by certain organizations with alleged security and military establishment. The press officer was fired shortly after. The alleged impression is that he was questioned about leaking information, which was protected by that commission. There is another owner of a prominent media organization of the country, who is under arrest for the last six months because of a property transaction that took place 34 years ago. The impression is that all these incidents are political because that particular media organization was critical of the present regime. Since the last six months, there have been no formal charge against that media organization or its owner.

There are other instances where it is observed that access to information or freedom of expression are censored. Journalists are being arrested by the government regime or military establishment. Critical media experts are allegedly fired from their jobs due to a certain pressure. Stability and use of words by the journalists criticizing government and military establishment are always questioned. Large-scale polarization of the local media is a serious concern which is actually affecting the performance of all the information channels. Recently, Prime Minister of Imran Khan said that the Pakistani media is freer than any other country. He also added that the right to freedom of speech cannot be justified when individuals are overly criticizing the government.

Having different perspectives is indeed required to establish a healthy society. The challenge in Pakistan is that the state and local governments are even sometimes journalists overreact to the differences in opinion. They lack tolerance and act verbally or physically violent against the individuals or organizations who criticize their acts. A balanced approach certainly is required to allow independent media and freedom of expression to flourish. Similarly, access to information is also selective. It is easy for us to get access to information for everyday stories; however, it is very complex when it comes to sensitive stories. As I mentioned, the CCP Security Exchange Commission officers were kidnapped, picked up by the security establishment for the alleged involvement of leaking of their story.

Considering the Target 16.10 that promotes the right to access information and combats the violence against journalists, Pakistan needs to achieve more to be in track. State and political regimes need to adopt a balanced approach and should welcome criticism, rather often violently, call off freedom of expression and media. Pakistan still lacks a reduction of crime and violence against journalists, which refers to the SDG 16.10. An effective legislator and the proper implementation of laws related to access to information is still required. There is a need to create a supporting environment to help the improvement of the independent media rather often one sided and a polarized approach. We cannot bring longterm changes either in the state institutions or in the civil society without having a consensual and balanced approach towards SDGs to transform institutions through better policies and laws. There is a need for the proper regulatory framework that helps in freedom of expression.

Active and responsible use of social media and the independency of journalists is also a challenge in this oppressive atmosphere. Media outlets and editors have a prominent role to initiate fruitful debates and discussions on this subject. Similarly, there is a need for protection and safety mechanisms by the media outlets for their staff, for the ones who are reporting at the local level. We should have a collective and balanced approach to tolerate criticism and to practice freedom of media and expression. The most prominent challenge for Pakistan is to ensure freedom of expression, free media and tackle violence against journalists to bring behavioral changes within the institutions which are owned by the state and within the civil society and within the media houses.

Michael Collins

Institute for Economics and Peace, Executive Director | USA

Michael Collins manages IEP relations with the US Government and the United Nations, develops working partnerships with US-based civil society organizations, foundations, universities, businesses and think tanks and seeks new opportunities to build IEP’s presence and impact throughout North, Central and South America. Prior to working with IEP, Michael helped develop and oversee educational and job creation programs in emerging nations recovering from natural disasters, working frequently in communities affected by poverty and gang violence. Michael Collins discussed the Global Peace Index 2020 insights, with a particular focus on the decline of democratic values and the rise of autocracy globally. Collins presented information on the indicators of the peace and its three main domains. He also underlined the significant decrease of peacefulness in democracies.

The recent IEP Report provides insight into how well the international community is working towards reducing violence in reference to targets and indicators of SDG #16.22 The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute. It is dedicated to shifting the world’s focus to peace as a positive, tangible and achievable measure of human well-being and progress. The origins of the institute stem essentially from the question, what are the most peaceful countries on Earth?

At the time, there was sort of a lot of debate about this, but there was very little quantitative research around this subject. The Global Peace Index stems from the desire to answer that question, as well as to track trends in peace and to calculate the economic cost of violence as a way of incentivizing peace building activities. This work has been very well received and it is consulted frequently by a variety of multilateral organizations and governments around the world, as well as university courses. This is the 14th year of the Global Peace Index and it ranks 163 countries according to their relative state of peace. The definition of peace in the index is the “lack of violence or fear of violence.”

The track uses 23 different indicators, which are largely distributed in three domains:

• The first one is related to domestic and international conflict.

• The second is related to measures of safety and security within society,

• The third is the degree of militarization.

The situation overall is that the average level of peacefulness has deteriorated by 0.34 percent. That is the ninth deterioration in the last 12 years. 81 countries became more peaceful, 80 countries deteriorated and improvements were driven by changes in terrorism.

The political terror scale underlines the differences of democracies and authoritarian regimes. It refers to things like extrajudicial killings, imprisonment without trial and torture. Iceland, New Zealand, Portugal, Austria, Denmark, Canada, Singapore, Czech Republic, Japan, and Switzerland are the 10 most peaceful countries for the 2020 report. All of these, with the exception of Singapore, are considered or assumed to be full democracies.

Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Congo DRC, Central African Republic, and Russia are the 10 least peaceful countries. All of these, with the exception of South Sudan that hasn’t made it into the metric that we consult are authoritarian, deemed to be authoritarian regimes. In terms of trends of peace, there has been a decline in peace over the last 12 years. Overall, 81 countries became less peaceful, 79 countries became more peaceful, highlighting that decreases in peace, larger than increases in peacefulness and overall peace over the last 10, 12 years has declined by 2.5 percent.

It is also observed that the levels of militarization have continued to improve by 4.5 percent, a small deterioration in safety and security. There has been a significant increase in ongoing conflict that is largely an authoritarian regime in the Middle East. There is a general difference even in trends with regards to levels of peacefulness for democracies versus authoritarian regimes. But interestingly, peacefulness in democracies is significantly decreased over the last and full democracies over the last five years.

That correlates very closely with the civil unrest seen since the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis. This is breaking down these indicators slightly more. The deaths from terrorism are now at the lowest point that they have been in the last decade. This situation is a result of a large spike that coincides with Iraq and Syria, where it is often seen a very close correlation between battle deaths and the impact of terrorism, because terrorism is essentially used as an instrument of war. They have seen that the number of refugees in decades has steadily increased in the world. On the good side, there has seen a sustained decrease in global homicide rates.

In terms of militarization, a general decrease in armed forces personnel, sustained decrease in military expenditure; although there has been a steady increase in the number of weapons imports. The economic impact of violence in 2020 is calculated to be 14.5 trillion dollars. It equates to 10 percent of the world’s GDP or nearly 2,000 dollars per person. This is the image of a world that is completely peaceful. But, what if they can make it 10 percent more peaceful? That would mean that there is 1.5 trillion dollars that could be used for other economic activities that are going to contribute further to development of peacefulness.

Positive peace refers to the attitude, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies. This is a term that is used commonly in the peacebuilding field. We have tried to develop a quantitative measure and compare the results of Global Peace Index with thousands of measures of socioeconomic progress to see which of the ones that correlate most closely with subsequent ups and downs in a country’s level of peace to be able to see essentially what makes peace tick.

There were 300 indicators that correlate very closely which fall into eight buckets, also called as the eight pillars of positive peace. These are the characteristics of the most peaceful societies on earth. These pillars interact and relate to each other systemically and incredibly complex ways. Countries with high levels of positive peace also have higher per capita income, high levels of resilience to crises such as COVID-19, political shocks, ecological threats, better environmental outcomes, higher measures of wellbeing and better performance on development goals. There is also a very strong correlation with the SDGs. It is observed that %85 of the SDG 169 targets are relevant to at least sort of two pillars of positive peace. The only area that is not reflected largely is the free flow of information and low levels of corruption, which are actually most described in SDG #16.

The overall positive peace globally has improved 2.5 percent over the last decade. There is a slow but progressive increase in the operations of the governments. Poverty and GDP, which are embedded in societies, have significantly been improved, that is largely a reflection of high levels of equality in society. However, over the last decade there have been a significant decrease in the attitude’s domain, which runs very counterintuitively to the improvements in structures. What does this look like in an individual country? Among the positive indicators, the largest deteriorations have been the quality of information that people have access to. A term commonly used, “fake news”, factionalized elites, which is the reality or the impression that the government does not represent the people or is controlled by a very small group of people and group grievances, as well as restrictions on freedom of the press as well. These are all also generally considered as the characteristics of authoritarian regimes. This also correlates with some of the global trends in civil unrest. There has been a sharp rise in the level of civil unrest over the last decade. The number of riots, general strikes and anti-government protests has more than doubled.

Europe has had the largest number of protests, riots and strikes, although the majority of those have been peaceful and civil unrest in sub-Saharan Africa has risen more than 800 percent. This is a breakout based on types of governance in which there is a general increase in civil unrest and all of this, but especially in what was deemed to be slowed democracies. The general impression that there is a measure of inequality and people protesting those measures.

Most of the indicators on the Global Peace Index deteriorates. On the other hand, the military expenditure may improve as countries will need all the financial resources essentially to be able to prop up their own economies. US and Europe are expected to see an increase in political instability. US-China relations are deteriorating that could have wider global implications. Support for UN Peacekeeping Operations and development aid is expected to significantly decrease that could have significant repercussions on foreign countries that are currently receiving aid and even countries that are developed are likely to be impacted.

Now, this is a very apt time to sort of reconsider how we are doing, because obviously we’re in the five-year mark of the SDGs in general. They ended by seeking foundation partners to make this possible, as well as for the development of the US Peace Index that I think would be extremely relevant to the time as well.

Paula Boland

UNA-NCA, President | USA

Paula Boland is an attorney specializing in environmental law and international affairs. Her strong interest in the protection of the environment led her to the LL.M. program in Environmental Law at Vermont Law School. Following a clerkship with the Environmental Enforcement Section of the US Department of Justice, Boland assisted a number of environmental nongovernmental organizations in the development of conservation projects to be carried out in Latin America. Paula joined the UNA-NCA staff, serving first as Program Director, and then as Executive Director. Paula received the UNA-NCA Evelyn Falkowski Volunteer Service Award and the United Nations Association of the USA’s 70th Anniversary Chapter Legacy Award. Paula Boland discussed the framework of implementing the SDG 16, which aims to build peace, just and strong institutions. Boland underlined how delivering SDG 16 is interconnected with the rest of the Global Goals. She highlighted the transformative role of SDG 16 in promoting economic, social, and environmental rights.

Through Sustainable Development Goal #16, member states have committed to promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and being effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. When the international community look back on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), governance emerged as a critical element in explaining the uneven progress across these goals in many countries. One of the lessons from the MDGs was that democratic governance, peace and security and the rule of law, including protection of human rights, are critical to sustainable development. A human rights approach helps identify who is vulnerable or being left behind and the ways in which those who are marginalized can be empowered to overcome their vulnerability.

The 2030 Agenda presents a shift, a significant shift and radical new approach to transforming our world, focusing on the integrated pillars of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental. It is universal, including issues such as inequality, access to justice, peace and security, and aims at leaving no one behind. Moreover, the SDG Agenda has an additional complexity in terms of its implementation and requires a mix of national ownership, flexibility, innovation, political acumen, high quality technical support and collective multi-stakeholder effort at all levels in order to become progressively a reality. SDG #16 is key to achieving the transformative 2030 Agenda. Its focus on seven principles of strong institutions: effective, inclusive, responsive, participative, representative, accountable and transparent as well as peaceful society are necessary for achieving all SDGs. This is true whether the goal is related to education, health, economic growth, climate change or beyond.

Without sustaining peace, which goes beyond the absence of violence and includes respect for human rights and the rule of law, development gains are reversed. Without inclusion and access to justice for all, inequalities in poverty reduction and socioeconomic development will increase and the country`s commitment to leave no one behind will not be met.

SDG Goal #16 has the potential to catalyze profound social transformation that requires addressing the root causes and drivers that generate and reproduce economic, social, political and environmental problems and inequities, not merely the symptoms. Transformation involves changes in social structures, institutions and relations, including patterns of inequalities related to income, gender, ethnicity, religion or geography that might lock people into positions of disadvantage or limit their choices. Global Goal #16 means changing norms and institutions that shape the behavior of people and organizations in the social, economic, environmental and political spheres. Without specific attention to how SDG #16 applies in all dimensions of human life, it will be impossible to realize the transformative potential of the SDGs. SDG #16 also has tremendous value as an enabler and accelerator for all SDGs.

SDG #16 also acknowledges the other SDG targets that contribute to peace, justice and responsive institutions. SDG #16 offers a framework for institutions at all levels to build peaceful, just and inclusive society that place human rights protection and inclusive and accountable governance at the heart at the center of tackling inequality. The SDG #16 framework provides countries with a rights-based approach to tackling the drivers of suffering that affords dignity and agency to those left behind.

Advancement towards ending violence, promotion of the rule of law, strengthening institutions and increasing access to justice are uneven and continue to deprive millions of people`s security, rights and opportunities and undermine the delivery of public services and broader economic development. Attacks on civil society are also holding back development progress. Renewed efforts are essential to move towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals #16. The number of people fleeing war, persecution and conflict is nearing 80 million, the highest level recorded by the UN Refugee Agency. In 2019, the UN tracked 357 killings and 30 enforced disappearances of human rights defenders, journalists and trade unionists in 47 countries.

The birth of around one in four children under age five worldwide are never officially recorded, depriving them of a proof of legal identity crucial for the protection of their rights and for access to justice and social services. No one can hope for sustainable development without peace, stability, human rights and effective governance based on the rule of law. Yet our world is increasingly divided, some regions enjoying more peace, security and prosperity than others, while many are falling into seemingly endless cycles of conflict and violence. This is not inevitable and must be addressed.

Dr. Marina Sorokina

The Alexander Solzhenitsyn Center for the Study of the Russian Diaspora, Head of the Department of History | Russia

Dr. Marina Sorokina was a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for the Advanced Studies in Humanities at the Russian State University for the Humanities. She has also served at the Russian Academy of Sciences Archive in Moscow. Russian Academy of Natural Sciences awarded her with a Vernadsky Silver Medal for her academic studies. She is a member at The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Association for the Study of the Asian and Pacific Ocean Region and Russian Society for the History of Medicine.

Women scholars in exile, women and immigration in the contemporary world. In contrast to many other countries, Russia survived three major waves of mass migration in the 20th century. These are the refugees of the Bolshevik Revolution and civil war, refugees of World War II, and migration after Gorbachev`s perestroika. Many thousands of Russians left their homeland and traditional environment under the pressure of political persecution and settled down in many countries in the world, in Latin America, especially in Brazil.

A number of schools and scientists work within these emigrants. Issues concerning scholars in exile have attracted attention, especially in relation to the larger immigration wave that hit Europe facing the Nazi regime. This has been already well documented by the academic works, in contrast, there has been no scholarly treatment of the Russian academic migration in the 20th century that has grappled systematically with the topic on the basis of archival research.

For many years, refugees, invalids and dissidents were hidden groups ignored by the Soviet authorities, civil society and public memory. Only today, historians shifted their focus to study those groups. We shall now look at the life story of one of the very interesting women scholars in exile, Helen Antipov. Russian born Brazilian psychologist and educator, founder of the System of Support to Disabled Children.

Her life is very important in our perspective. Why Helen Antipov? As many other women refugee scholars were searching for professional employment in the changing European environment. Brazil opened the window of opportunities for her and many other scholars and scientists. Russia, Switzerland, Brazil marked not only the geographical shift of the immigrant scholar positions, but reflected new communications.

The ways how the European scholarly approaches and techniques were applied to the new institutions before World War II. The role of the immigrant scholars and especially women immigrant scholars were pioneering in this process. As such, Antipov`s story contributes to gender and immigration history, to the social history of psychology and human rights. But it also demonstrates the ways in which the formation of a very strong and persistent transnational or international network of scholars whose professional biographies on the level of concepts and ideas grew up from multicultural, intellectual components and traditions.

Antipov`s work and the work of many Russian refugee women were marked by a strong commitment with the achievement of human ideals of social justice and happiness. As a scientist, director of one of the first laboratories of psychology established in Brazil, she did the kid herself to know Brazilian children so that their education would be better oriented. Following the guidelines of the Geneva Declaration of Children`s Rights issued by the League of Nations in 1924, she focused education as a right in itself. And her views, schools were not supposed to provide the limited citizenship consciousness. On the contrary, citizenship was seen as a consequence of a steady support for the development of the children`s capacities.

With her experience with war and revolution in Europe, Helen Antipov strove for harmony, not for struggle. In her view, social harmony would be attained if each individual were given the opportunity to develop his own calling. In this development, education had a central role. Thank you very much for your attention and giving you this example in order to show the great role of the women`s corps in the contemporary world. We are looking at history, but we are living today. I hope that our network will work for many years.