Our Work
We are a transnational human rights initiative working to challenge arbitrary detention wherever it occurs. Because we bring cases before United Nations Special Procedures, we are able to consider cases of arbitrary detention from anywhere in the world, as this non-treaty-based mechanism allows individuals to submit complaints directly without the State concerned having expressly consented to its jurisdiction and without the need to exhaust domestic remedies.
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We work in partnership with local individuals, legal practitioners, communities, and initiatives to bring cases before the United Nations in order to generate international scrutiny and diplomatic engagement with a view to securing freedom from detention. The UN Special Procedures provide a unique forum for challenging arbitrary detention and highlighting its structural and systemic drivers. While these UN bodies' and actors' opinions and communications are not legally binding, their findings carry normative and political weight as authoritative determinations by an independent body that a person is being detained in violation of international law. They can provide important validation for affected individuals and their families and serve as a foundation for diplomatic engagement, public advocacy, domestic litigation, and longer-term efforts toward structural change.
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Our work is guided by two primary aims:
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Securing Immediate Liberty
Our work is primarily oriented towards securing the release of individuals from detention. Submitting petitions to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) is a key strategy through which we pursue this objective. Where the WGAD finds that a person’s detention is arbitrary and in violation of international law, it issues an opinion urging the government concerned to take steps to remedy the situation, including by ensuring the individual's immediate release. Advocacy before UN Special Procedures concerning treatment in detention and detention conditions can also result in official communications from Special Rapporteurs calling on authorities to address violations, including by releasing the individual from detention.​
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Documenting and Challenging State Violence
Securing an opinion from the UN can also be an effective means through which state abuses can be recorded and compelling evidence collected of an ongoing trend of abuse. In this respect, they are an effective tool for social justice movements, as another means of drawing widespread attention to a cause and structural issues.​
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​In summary, these mechanisms allow us to push for the release of arbitrarily detained individuals, secure evidence of human rights abuses and generate global pressure against State institutions.
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Notable Case
Fis Murhanzi v. Democratic Republic of the Congo (WGAD Opinion No. 31/2021)
One of the Initiative’s most significant cases involved advocacy before the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) on behalf of individuals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who were subjected to enforced disappearance, torture, and prolonged arbitrary detention following their conviction by a military tribunal on fabricated charges relating to the assassination of former President Laurent-Désiré Kabila.
​Mr Fis Murhanzi, along with others tried in the same proceedings, spent more than twenty years in detention and was sentenced to death, remaining on death row for many years without certainty as to whether or when execution might occur. This prolonged uncertainty raised serious concerns about death row syndrome, which can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The case also highlighted broader systemic concerns, including the use of military courts to try civilians and patterns of persecution affecting individuals from eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, particularly North Kivu and South Kivu.
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Following submission of the petition, the WGAD issued Opinion No. 31/2021, finding the detention arbitrary on multiple grounds and urging the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to remedy the situation, including by securing the detainees’ release. The Working Group also referred the case to several UN Special Rapporteurs, including those on torture, health, and extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
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The WGAD’s findings generated sustained international attention, and shortly after the opinion was transmitted to the Government through diplomatic channels, Mr Murhanzi, his relatives, and more than twenty others detained under the same charges — who had previously been systematically excluded from presidential pardon measures for two decades — were finally included in a presidential pardon that secured their release after over twenty years of imprisonment.
