22/10/2020 | Standing Committee
“The criminal law, civil law and human rights implications of the development and introduction of autonomous vehicles must be regulated in accordance with Council of Europe standards,” according to PACE’s Standing Committee. In a resolution based on a report by Ziya Altunyaldiz (Turkey, NR), the...
22/10/2020 | Standing Committee
PACE’s Standing Committee is calling for a “dedicated legal instrument”, preferably binding and with global reach, to ensure Artificial Intelligence respects human rights principles, particularly in health care. It would lay down benchmarks in areas such as privacy, confidentiality, the safety of...
13/10/2020 | Standing Committee
“All measures restricting human rights taken in response to a public health emergency must be ‘lawful, proportionate and non-discriminatory’,” said the PACE Standing Committee, meeting today by videoconference. According to the parliamentarians, these restrictive measures should be reviewed in...
13/10/2020 | Standing Committee
As states reintroduce extraordinary measures to deal with recent increases in the COVID-19 virus, PACE’s Standing Committee has again warned that “democracy, human rights and the rule of law cannot be allowed to become the collateral damage of the pandemic”. While supporting States and public...
13/10/2020 | Standing Committee
“The COVID-19 pandemic has been an accelerator of the problems we were already facing but were refusing to address. We now have no excuses. We can no longer procrastinate in realising human rights for all”, today said Dunja Mijatović, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, presenting...
13/10/2020 | Standing Committee
PACE has urged governments to avoid “one size fits all” responses to pandemics or other similar crises, and ensure they always act inclusively and take account of the diversity of society when shaping emergency measures in future. Approving a resolution based on a report by Petra Stienen...
13/10/2020 | Standing Committee
By adopting a resolution today, based on the report by Pierre-Alain Fridez (Switzerland, SOC) on the humanitarian consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for migrants and refugees, the Standing Committee, meeting by videoconference, said that these vulnerable groups were “doubly affected” by the...
12/10/2020 | Standing Committee
“In times of pandemic, human life and public health should be kept at the top of our priorities regardless of the problems in the economic activity and by trying also to minimize the negative consequences for democracy, the rule of law and human rights,” said Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, the Greek...
12/10/2020 | Standing Committee
OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria has appealed to the world’s nations not to stop the extra economic stimulus provided during the period of the COVID pandemic too soon. In an exchange of views by teleconference with members of the Parliamentary Assembly’s ‘enlarged’ Standing Committee, the OECD...
12/10/2020 | Standing Committee
The ‘enlarged’ Standing Committee, meeting today by videoconference, held a current affairs debate on the ‘Armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, failure of peaceful conflict resolution and a risk to regional stability’. Michael Aastrup Jensen (Denmark, ALDE) opened the debate and twenty...
12/10/2020 | Standing Committee
PACE is urging the European Union to rapidly resolve the “institutional deadlock” imposed by Malta over the definition of ‘illegal sports betting’ which is preventing the Union and its member States from ratifying a Council of Europe convention aimed at tackling the manipulation of sport...
12/10/2020 | Standing Committee
Member States must “optimise human rights protection in the implementation of drug control policies”, while adopting “a public health approach”, the PACE Standing Committee said today, meeting by videoconference. There is strong evidence suggesting that purely repressive policies have been...