Working to realise universal human rights, so that everyone enjoys equal dignity and rights.
Covenants Watch is a Taiwanese non-governmental organisation that promotes universal human rights values and works to ensure that everyone enjoys equal dignity and rights. In April 2009, Taiwan's Legislative Yuan passed the Act to Implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, giving these two most important UN human rights treaties (the "two Covenants") the force of domestic law and declaring to the world Taiwan's determination to uphold human rights.
Yet decades of exclusion from the international community had left the people of Taiwan largely unfamiliar with fast-evolving international human rights standards; even government agencies knew little of what they actually required. How could such a vast reform get under way? On International Human Rights Day, 10 December 2009, more than forty human rights groups, lawyers, scholars and experts, convened by veteran democracy activist Peter Huang (Huang Wen-hsiung), announced the formation of a coalition to monitor how the government fulfils the human rights obligations that come with the two Covenants. As the Legislative Yuan went on to pass implementing acts for several other human rights treaties, the coalition's scope expanded and it took its current name, Covenants Watch.
In April 2009, the Legislative Yuan passed the Act to Implement the ICCPR and the ICESCR, giving these two most important international human rights treaties the force of domestic law and pledging to the international community Taiwan's determination to abide, of its own accord, by the norms and institutions of the international human rights system. For Taiwan, long excluded from the international community, international human rights standards that had once seemed abstract and remote became part of the domestic legal order.
However, most people, including those in government, were unfamiliar with what international human rights actually entail. How could such an enormous, all-encompassing institutional reform be set in motion? That same year, Peter Huang (Huang Wen-hsiung) brought together more than forty human rights groups, lawyers and scholars, who on International Human Rights Day, 10 December, announced the founding of a coalition to monitor the government's fulfilment of the human rights obligations that come with the two Covenants.
The government went on to pass the Act to Implement CEDAW in 2011, and the Acts to Implement the CRC and the CRPD in 2014. The coalition's work expanded accordingly and it took its current name, Covenants Watch. Formally registered in 2016, it continues to work tirelessly for the implementation and deepening of Taiwan's human rights mechanisms.
We urge the Taiwanese government to strengthen national human rights protection mechanisms, including establishing a national human rights institution in line with the Paris Principles, setting up a human rights department in the Executive Yuan to coordinate human rights work across ministries, and adopting human rights impact assessments in legislation and policy-making.
We promote and coordinate civil society participation in the international reviews of the human rights treaties held every four years, providing human rights reports and reform proposals independent of the government. Between reviews, we bring together a wide range of actors to monitor the government's implementation of the Concluding Observations and Recommendations issued by the international experts.
Through reading groups, workshops, lectures and other events, we work to raise awareness and understanding of human rights issues in Taiwanese society. These activities are a platform for sharing knowledge, and they encourage human rights workers and the public to reflect together on how international human rights norms can be applied locally.
Through in-depth research on laws and policies, and by introducing useful international guidelines, practical guides and teaching resources, we provide a reliable, professional foundation of human rights knowledge and reform arguments, help the Taiwanese government strengthen its capacity for human rights governance, and develop monitoring tools such as human rights indicators and statistics.
Covenants Watch works for the incorporation of the nine core UN human rights treaties into domestic law, monitors the government's implementation of international human rights through Taiwan's own laws and policies, and protects and promotes the equal dignity and rights of all.
Unlike UN member states, Taiwan cannot submit "national reports" on its human rights situation to international experts in Geneva for regular review. It is rather like an auditing student who sits the mid-term exam but never has it marked, with little room to improve. Thanks to the persistence of civil society, however, Taiwan has built a reporting and review mechanism that matches, and in some respects exceeds, the UN's current treaty review system, overcoming great obstacles to invite senior international human rights experts to Taiwan to conduct the reviews in person. After in-depth, face-to-face dialogue with the government delegation and civil society groups, the experts issue "Concluding Observations and Recommendations" on how the government should further improve and implement human rights, which become the benchmark for the next periodic review four years later. Since its founding, Covenants Watch has worked to root this international review system in Taiwan. It connects, empowers and coordinates many groups to take part in the international reviews of the two Covenants (the first was held in 2013), submits the most comprehensive civil society "parallel/shadow reports" on the official reports, and uses this new mechanism to press the government to improve its human rights performance.
Covenants Watch also calls on the government to improve the human rights protection mechanisms within the current system, advocating the establishment of a national human rights commission and a human rights department in the Executive Yuan, and promoting the government's use of tools such as human rights indicators, human rights statistics and human rights impact assessments.
Covenants Watch and its member groups also work to raise public awareness of human rights. Through press conferences, marches, protests and other actions, we hold the government to account on specific cases; we organise workshops and seminars for in-depth discussion of human rights issues; and we run regular public talks such as "Human Rights Wednesday", gathering for human rights on the first and third Wednesday evenings of every month.
上線前對照用：舊站對應頁面 ↗
