Taiwan Today

While democracy and human rights may have been viewed as separate concepts historically, the two ideas have become interdependent as notions about them have evolved. In a modern society, democracy cannot function without human rights and experience has shown that human rights cannot be ensured in the absence of democracy. With its significant democratic growth during the past several decades thanks to wide-ranging political reforms, Taiwan has also made progress in its human rights standards.

Despite being denied recognition by the United Nations (UN), which is a key platform for the development of international human rights laws and standards, the Republic of China (ROC) has been reviewing and amending its domestic laws and regulations to bring its human rights practices in line with UN standards. In terms of women’s human rights, for instance, the legislature approved the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 2007, a bill that was signed by the president the same year. In 2011, the lawmaking body passed the CEDAW Implementation Act, which entered into force in 2012. “The significance of the implementation act is that it turns an international convention into the law of the land,” says Ho Bih-jen (何碧珍), secretary-general of the National Alliance of Taiwan Women’s Associations. “It means that we’ve progressed from promoting the concept of CEDAW to being able to actually cite it in a court of justice.”

Also in 2012, the Executive Yuan established the Department of Gender Equality. Tasked with promoting gender equality and safeguarding women’s human rights, the newly established department marks a milestone in Taiwan’s push to eliminate gender-based discrimination.

Women’s rights in the job market have also seen more protection thanks to several amendments to the Act of Gender Equality in Employment. Statistics from the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) show that in the past several years, fewer businesses have taken gender into consideration when making decisions on employee benefits. The number of companies that factored gender into decisions on job assignment, for example, dropped from 40 percent in 2007 to 30 percent in 2011, and from 5 to 2 percent for decisions on transfers and promotions.

When ROC President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office in 2008, he stated his determination to elevate Taiwan’s human rights policies to international standards and immediately started work to ratify and implement two UN covenants—the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The Legislative Yuan approved the covenants in March 2009 and Ma signed the instruments of ratification two months later. Actually, the ROC, as a founding member of the UN, signed the two human rights covenants back in 1967, but was unable to participate further in UN activities after losing its representation there in 1971.

Under UN regulations, a ratified covenant formally takes effect three months after it has been deposited with the world body. Although the deposit of the ROC’s ratification documents was rejected by the UN in 2009 due to the country’s unique political situation, the Legislative Yuan nevertheless passed an implementation act to incorporate the content of the two covenants into domestic law.

Next, the Presidential Office Human Rights Consultative Committee was officially established in December 2010. Then-Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) served as the first convener of the committee, the members of which are a wide range of individuals with a demonstrated concern for human rights. The group is responsible for formulating suggestions on key human rights concerns, as well as reviewing domestic laws and regulations to ensure that they comply with the two covenants.

Another of the committee’s primary missions is to produce a human rights report according to the format stipulated by the UN and set forth in the covenants. The document offers detailed data on a comprehensive range of human rights issues from the protection of basic rights to Taiwan’s legal and political framework, freedom of expression, measures to end discrimination and protect various disadvantaged groups, as well as health, education, employment and numerous other social indicators. More than 90 conferences and public hearings were held to solicit a broad range of opinions in preparing the first report, which was released in April 2012. “The action we have taken to incorporate the two covenants into ROC law is not just for appearances,” Ma said at the media conference to mark the release of the report. “Rather, it is undertaken with the hope of truly raising human rights standards in Taiwan to levels seen in the rest of the world.” Ma also emphasized that ratification of the pacts is only the beginning, as Taiwan still needs to establish various mechanisms and rules, and then operate within them to improve human rights in the island nation.

The National Report on Human Rights has three parts: the Core Document Forming Part of the Reports; Implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and Implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. An English-language version was released in December 2012. At the media conference announcing the release of that version, Ma noted that about 70 percent of the amendments needed to bring legislation in line with the covenants have been completed. Copies of the English-language version have been sent to a number of international experts on human rights. Ten human rights experts and scholars from 10 countries were scheduled to visit Taiwan in February this year to assess the compliance of its human rights practices with UN standards.

In response, Covenants Watch—a coalition of more than 40 civil organizations—and the Taiwan Association for Human Rights issued the Taiwan Human Rights Report 2011: Shadow Reports on the ICCPR and ICESCR from NGOs a month after the government report. In addition to citing apparent examples of human rights violations that were absent in the government report, the shadow report states that the official version omits the numerous general comments issued for the two covenants, which provide concrete interpretations of the provisions in the treaties.

Different Points of View

As human rights activists see it, much of the government report simply reiterates statistical records rather than offering any critical analysis that could shed light on actual human rights conditions, or proposing particular measures to improve those conditions. Lawyer and Covenants Watch convener Kao Yung-cheng (高涌誠) says the shadow report differs from the official report because it represents Taiwan’s human rights situation from the point of view of civil society rather than the government. “There are different opinions and interpretations since the standpoints are different,” he says. “Whatever both sides have to say should be heard before a fair evaluation can be conducted.” The watchdog group planned to make an English-language version of the shadow report available to the experts reviewing the government report.

One issue addressed in the government report that has already raised concern is the rights of migrant workers. Economic and social changes in the 1980s led to Taiwan’s policy of allowing entry to large numbers of foreign workers in specific industries including manufacturing, construction and fishing, as well as for jobs as institutional and domestic caregivers and domestic helpers. According to the CLA, there are currently about 425,000 blue-collar foreign workers in Taiwan.

As pointed out by the Implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the basic rights of foreign workers are protected by Taiwan’s labor laws. Such workers employed in industries to which the Labor Standards Act applies, for example, are entitled to the same rights as ROC citizens in terms of working conditions, minimum wage, working hours and health and labor insurance. Starting from May 2011, foreign workers have been able to serve as union board members. The CLA also offers subsidies to local governments to set up consultation centers for such workers with the aim of protecting their rights and welfare by seeking to prevent instances of forced labor or other forms of exploitation. Personnel from the centers regularly visit foreign workers in their areas to check their living and employment conditions, as well as to make sure employers have complied with all legal employment requirements.

The government report also points out certain restrictions foreign workers are subject to. For example, they need to present proof of a clean criminal record when applying for an entry visa; they are required to pass a medical examination to be eligible for a working visa; and they are severely limited as to the conditions under which they are allowed to change employers. Also, since the Labor Standards Act does not apply to domestic workers, such as caregivers and helpers, employees in these fields are not covered by Taiwan’s labor insurance program, though they are covered by health insurance.

Human rights groups are glad to see that the report offers official acknowledgement of the restrictions foreign workers face, though they also see much room for improvement. “The rights holder in the two covenants is referred to as a ‘human being’ instead of a ‘citizen,’ or ‘national,’” the shadow report states. “That is to say, we should protect the rights of all human beings in this land instead of just the citizens.” The government maintains that limitations are placed on foreign workers to protect employment opportunities for ROC nationals, as well as the country’s economic development and social stability. The shadow report recommends that the government set a schedule to review all labor-related codes thoroughly and make necessary revisions so that all workers—foreign and domestic—can enjoy the same rights.

Another issue mentioned in the government report that has spurred intensive discussion is whether or not Taiwan should abolish capital punishment. Statistics from the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) show that both death sentence verdicts and the number of executions in Taiwan have dropped considerably over time. The number of death sentences in the past decade was about one-third that of the previous decade, and there were only three executions in 2004, three in 2005 and none between 2006 and 2009. Executions resumed, however, in 2010, with four that year, five in 2011 and six in 2012. Currently, there are 55 inmates on death row.

The resumption of executions since 2010, the year after Taiwan approved the ICCPR and adopted its provisions into domestic law, has drawn a great amount of criticism from human rights groups. Lin Hsin-yi (林欣怡), executive director of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, thinks that the death penalty is completely contrary to the spirit of the ICCPR. “The government should have kept the moratorium on executions as it did between 2006 and 2009,” she says. International human rights groups have also expressed their concerns. “The death penalty is never the right answer and must never be used, including as a tool for crime prevention, repression or any other policies,” said Roseann Rife, head of the East Asia region at Amnesty International, after Taiwan executed six inmates in December 2012—shortly after the release of the English-language version of the national human rights report. “How can the government credibly claim it wants to see an end to the death penalty when it continues to conduct such actions?” she asked.

In fact, capital punishment is not explicitly prohibited under the ICCPR. The convention recognizes its legitimate use for “the most serious crimes,” if rendered according to laws that do not contravene the ICCPR, excluding acts of genocide, and if carried out “pursuant to a final judgment rendered by a competent court.” As stated in the Implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, although the ROC has approved the covenant, its policies on whether or not to abolish the death penalty or how to do so have yet to be formulated clearly.

At the same time, there is substantial public support for retaining the death penalty. Opinion polls by both government agencies and the nongovernmental sector consistently show that between 75 and 80 percent of people in Taiwan are opposed to abolishing capital punishment. In an MOJ poll conducted in July 2012, however, while 76 percent of respondents said they would not support suspending executions, 82 percent said they would support a gradual reduction in the use of the death penalty.

Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫), who has spoken publicly several times on the government’s death penalty policy, notes that abolishing capital punishment is an international trend, but one that cannot be achieved overnight. The decisions to abolish the death penalty in France and the United Kingdom, for example, occurred more than three decades after the nations signed the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (commonly known as the European Convention on Human Rights) in 1950 and following much advocacy and effort on the part of those countries. Taiwan has achieved significant legal reform in this regard, such as the amendment to the Criminal Code in 2005 that prohibits the rendering of the death penalty in cases involving offenders under the age of 18, and another in 2006 that eliminated mandatory death sentences for particular crimes. “The government has been reducing the number of death sentences [via methods such as amendments to the legal code], with the aim of eliminating capital punishment in the future,” Tseng says. “There’s no timetable for the abolition and, for the time being, the Ministry of Justice should respect the rule of law.”

As for Taiwan’s recent human rights report, current international politics mean that the UN is unlikely to accept the deposit of the country’s ratification documents no matter how many international human rights experts review the government report and regardless of whether or not the country abolishes the death penalty. Nevertheless, by passing the two covenants into law, Taiwan is sending a clear message to both its people and the international community about its determination to uphold the concepts and ideals of universal human rights.

Write to Jim Hwang at cyhuang03@mofa.gov.tw