Annual Report 2009-10 - Sustainable Development Policy Institute

Effectiveness of UN 1325 on Lives of Women in PakistanThe Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Bedari, INSAN Foundation Trust, CAMPand PAIMAN under the national campaign on Women Action for Peace (WAP) jointly organizedthis event. Womens rights campaigners and participants of the seminar urged the governmentof Pakistan to fulfill its obligations under the UN resolution 1325 to ensure women's protectionand safety against combatants and armed elements during armed conflicts and their consequentnegative impacts, and recognized women's participation and representation in peacebuildingand the reconciliation process. They urged that the protection of communities and thestate was imperative for women during conflict times. They highlighted women's problems andvictimization besides lack of implementation on the national and international level regardingwomen's rights adding that rape and harassment have been widely used as weapons of waragainst women. They said that women always suffer victimization such as displacement, sexualviolence and abduction etc in both war and peace. While referring to the shortcomings of the UNresolution, they said that it lacks specific timelines, weak prosecution aspects due to countryspecificdomestic laws, absence of concrete guidelines for the member countries, and internalissues within the United Nations systems such as infrastructure, security, and sensitivity aboutthe internal policies and matters of other countries as some of the important barriers in the wayof effective implementation on a resolution.Annual Report2009 - 2010Governance/ Socio Economic DevelopmentConsultative Meeting on “The Criminal Justice System, Writs of Habeas Corpus andCommissions of Inquiry- Commonalities and Differences in South Asia”The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and Law and Society Trust (LST), SriLanka jointly organized this national level meeting. A comprehensive study has been undertakenregarding the working and effectiveness of the habeas corpus remedy in Sri Lanka duringthe post-2nd Republican Constitution (the current Constitution) era, at the stage of the appellatecourts as well as the Provincial High Courts. The analysis not only illustrated judicial attitudes tothe freedoms of life and liberty but also highlighted paucities in the working of the legal/judicialsy stem.Similar discussions have also taken place previously in two workshops held in Kathmandu, Nepaland Bangalore, India this year. The main reasons behind the initiation of such discussionsincluding this workshop was that problems faced by Sri Lanka in this context were shared withother South Asian countries which also have same colonial history and legacy. The commonalitiesand shared problems among these countries can bring them together to come up with collectiverecommendations to address such critical issues. These efforts which at present involved47S u s t a I n a b l e D e v e l o p m e n t P o l I c y I n s t I t u t e