Each year, the Norwegian National Human Rights Institution (NIM) highlights some selected topics and issues in the Annual Report. The recommendations are selected on the basis on NIM`s criteria for prioritization, which are based on NIM`s mandate under the NIM Act. Below follows an English translation of the recommendations for 2021.
The recommendations cover the following five thematic areas:
- Ability to serve a prison sentence and isolation and use of force in prisons
- Climate change and human rights
- Unaccompanied minor asylum seekers
- Indigenous peoples’ protection against encroachment on nature
- Human rights and new technologies
Ability to serve a prison sentence, isolation and use of force in prisons
NIM recommends:
The Parliament should request the Government to:
- Assess whether the threshold for being capable to serve in prison sufficiently ensures that the inmate will be able to handle imprisonment, and whether the legal certainty guarantees for assessing the ability to serve a sentence are sufficient, before as well as during the serving of the sentence.
- Present to Parliament a schedule for reviewing the regulations for exclusion from community and for use of coercion in prison, as well as for legal provisions allowing healthcare personnel to follow up prisoners in isolation.
Justification
The Parliamentary Ombud has documented serious challenges related to the large extent of isolation practiced in prisons. Three main reasons for such isolation are emphasized: Lack of community, limited possibilities for activities as well as unsuitable premises. Exclusion from community leads to more mental health problems, leading to more isolation and use of coercion, which in turn increases the risk for exposing the prisoners to human rights violations.
Climate change and human rights
NIM recommends:
Parliament should request the Government to review the Climate Change Act with the view to legislate the 1.5 degrees target and commit to specified annual cuts in emissions until zero emissions are reached in a national carbon budget.
Justification
Such an amendment of the Climate Change Act is necessary to ensure that the younger and future generations can enjoy the right to an environment that is conducive to health and to a natural environment whose productivity and diversity are maintained, the right to life and physical integrity according to the European Convention on Human Rights. Such legislation is also necessary in order to protect them against disproportionate cuts in the future, affecting other human rights.
Unaccompanied minor asylum seekers
NIM recommends:
Parliament should request that the Government present a bill with the view to ensure that unaccompanied minor asylum seekers over 15 years of age are provided a standard of care and protection equivalent to what is offered to children under the age of 15 and to other children under the responsibility of Child Welfare Services.
Justification
There are significant differences in the accommodation and care given to children, including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children under the age of 15, and unaccompanied minors aged 15, 16 and 17. The younger children are under the responsibility of Child Welfare Services, while the older children live in designated reception centres. The reception centres differ with respect to staffing levels which are lower, staff competence requirements and physical conditions.
In our view, article 22 paragraph 2 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child obliges Norwegian authorities to give unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors aged 15-17 a standard of care and protection which is equivalent to what is offered to other children in Norway under the responsibility of Child Welfare Services.
Indigenous peoples’ protection against encroachment on nature
NIM recommends:
Parliament should request the Government to:
- Clarify the assessment topics in Article 27 of the ICCPR to get a clearer footprint nationally, either in law or other regulations, of the threshold for violation of Article 27. A more detailed regulation would, in our view, provide a greater degree of predictability and better human rights assessments in the public administration.
- Consider whether the practice of allowing the actual development in accordance with the licence to proceed beforethe question of the validity of the licence has legally been decided.
Justification
A more detailed instruction on assessment topics and weighing among them would have provided better guidance. For both rights holders and developers, a more detailed regulation would provide a greater degree of predictability. This threshold is of great importance for persons and groups covered by the protection of the provision, as well as for licence-seeking enterprises. There is much at stake both for the affected Sami and for the developers in a licensing process. The case concerning wind power at Fosen shows with all possible emphasis that there is a need to clarify which factors must be included in an overall assessment of whether a measure is approaching the limit for violation of ICCPR Article 27, and how these factors should be weighed. Strengthening procedural rights is an important contribution to the implementation of ICCPR Article 27 and ILO 169.
Human Rights and new technology
NIM recommends:
Parliament should request that the Government conduct comprehensive impact assessment, emphasizing human rights impact, in particular the rights to privacy, non-discrimination and freedom of expression, when presenting bills which involve increased use of information technology.
Justification
The development within information technology involves changes that are some of the fastest and most dramatic societal changes in human history, with major consequences for human rights. Technology places great demands on how one ensures that new technologies are more useful than harmful to human rights. In particular, the right to privacy, the right to non-discrimination and freedom of expression are crucial in balancing the relationship between the individual and state authorities in the new technological reality. These rights must be secured in satisfactory ways when new information technology is used.