The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Lao Movement for Human Rights (LMHR) welcome the assessment by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee (CCPR), which gave the Lao government low grades concerning the implementation of the committee’s recommendations on enforced disappearances and participation in public affairs and the right to vote.
Paris, 15 August 2024. On 6 August 2024, the CCPR released its report on the follow-up to the Concluding Observations it had adopted on 23 July 2018, after the review of Laos’ initial report under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) on 11 and 12 July 2018. In its Concluding Observations, the CCPR asked the government to provide information on the implementation of recommendations concerning: enforced disappearances; participation in public affairs and the right to vote; and the rights of persons belonging to minorities.
The CCPR’s assessment reflects the findings contained in the joint follow-up report that FIDH and LMHR submitted to the committee in April 2024, detailing the Lao government’s failure to take any steps towards the implementation of the CCPR’s recommendations on enforced disappearances and participation in public affairs and the right to vote.
On the issue of enforced disappearances, the CCPR gave the government a “C” on the implementation of its recommendations to: criminalize enforced disappearances; conduct thorough, credible, impartial, and transparent investigations into ongoing cases of enforced disappearances; provide victims and their families with an effective remedy and full reparations; prosecute perpetrators; and ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), which Laos signed in September 2008. The CCPR regretted the lack of measures taken to criminalize enforced disappearances, inadequate investigations, the slow progress towards ratifying the ICPPED, and the failure to ensure that victims and their families receive information on the progress of investigations and are provided with full reparations.
With regard to participation in public affairs and the right to vote, the CCPR gave an “E” – the lowest possible grade – to the government as a result of the lack of information on steps taken to effectively guarantee the right of citizens to genuinely take part in the conduct of public affairs, to vote, and to be elected. The CCPR expressed concern over the continued restriction of a multi-party system, the exclusion of ethnic minorities, particularly the Hmong, in political and public life, the suppression of civil and political space, and the lack of measures taken to guarantee convicted prisoners the right to vote.
In addition, the CCPR assigned a “C” to the government’s implementation of the committee’s recommendations on the rights of persons belonging to minorities, noting an increase in forced and illegal land grabbing by the authorities that resulted in mass displacement of rural communities and the continued persecution and discrimination of members of the Hmong ethnic minority.
FIDH and LMHR reiterate their calls on the Lao government to ratify the ICPPED without delay and adequately investigate all ongoing cases of enforced disappearances, with the aim of identifying the perpetrators and providing victims with effective remedies and full reparations. FIDH and LMHR also urge the Lao government to take concrete steps towards the implementation of the necessary political, institutional, and legal reforms to ensure competitive general elections that allow the registration and participation of political parties and independent candidates.
