A “Unique work” by the Human Rights Ombudsperson

For three years now human rights groups and others have been asking why the Human Rights Ombudsperson is not fulfilling her duty under the Law on the Ombudsperson to provide an annual report on the human rights situation to parliament.

Timed to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a Special Report from the Ombudsperson has appeared. It is entitled “”How Ukraine is adhering to international human rights standards”. The book is most attractively presented, and has 258 whole pages.

While the appearance of any report after such a long wait must be welcomed, the first problem is that the actual report in fact occupies only a quarter of the book, with the rest being international documents, etc.

The report is also anything but an in-depth analysis of the human rights situation in the country. It is not the fact that the annual human rights organizations’ reports are longer, but that they give detailed analyses of legislative problems, cases of abuse, as well as giving recommendations to the authorities on how to solve the problems analyzed. 

Nina Karpachova in what she calls a “unique work” provides neither analysis, nor recommendations.