COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION CONSIDERS REPORT OF NORWAY

Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

11 August 2006



The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has considered the seventeenth and eighteenth periodic reports of Norway on its implementation of the provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Presenting the report, Petter Wille, Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway, said that a large step towards more comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation had been made in June 2005 when Parliament approved the Act Prohibiting Discrimination based on ethnicity and religion, as well as the Act on the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombudsman and an Equality and Anti-Discrimination Tribunal. Also in 2005, the Act concerning legal relations and management of land and natural resources in the county of Finnmark was adopted to meet Sami demands for fairer legislation and to reflect the Sami’s historic and cultural affiliation with and their traditional rights to lands and waters.

In preliminary remarks, Patrick Thornberry, the Committee Expert who served as country Rapporteur for Norway, said that further reflection in the Committee would be needed on any consequences that would flow from Norway’s not adhering fully to the language of the Convention in the Anti-Discrimination Act, by omitting race as a category. He noted the expansion of indigenous rights in the State party and thought they could all learn from Norway’s initiatives in that sphere. He also welcomed the Norwegian approach which held that identity was not fixed, but there should be one set of laws for all and an adherence to core values.

Committee Experts also asked about what methods were used to improve the employment opportunities for different groups of immigrants; to what extent barriers for migrants to employment were owing to discrimination; drop-out rates for immigrants in higher education; what it meant to be Norwegian today; amendments to the burden of proof in cases alleging racism; and sensitization programmes for the police and for the media.

The delegation of Norway also included representatives from the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion and the Ministry of Justice, as well as representatives from the Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations Office at Geneva.

The Committee will present its written observations and recommendations on the reports of Norway, which were presented in one document, at the end of its session, which concludes on 18 August.

When the Committee reconvenes at 3 p.m. it will discuss the statement of the High Commissioner regarding the situation in Lebanon, issued today in conjunction with the special session of the Human Rights Council on the situation in Lebanon, with a view to issuing a supporting statement. At 3.30 p.m. the Committee will take up the seventeenth and eighteenth periodic reports of Ukraine (CERD/C/UKR/18).

Report of Norway

According to the seventeenth and eighteenth periodic reports of Norway, submitted in one document (CERD/C/497/Add.1), in June 2005 the Storting (the Norwegian Parliament) approved the new Anti-Discrimination Act which, with other legal amendments, may be regarded as the transformation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination into Norwegian law. Furthermore, the Convention has been implemented in Norwegian legislation by means of incorporation in the Anti-Discrimination Act. Prohibited grounds of discrimination are ethnicity, national origin, descent, skin colour, language, religion and belief. The Government supported the view that the concept of race should not be used in the wording of the Act as it is grounded in theories that have no justifiable scientific basis or content. Moreover, the concept has strong negative connotations and the Act will cover clearly enough what could otherwise be characterized as racial discrimination.

Statistically, first generation immigrants and descendants constitute the “immigrant population”, which accounts for 7.6 per cent of the total population. In Oslo, more than 20 per cent of the population are immigrants. In the last 10 years, the total immigrant population has increased from 128,000 to 350,000, with the five largest national origins being Pakistan, Sweden, Denmark, Viet Nam and Iraq. Accurate statistics on the size of the Sami population and the national minorities of Norway are not available, as ethnic affiliation is not recorded in censuses. In October 2004, the Government presented a report to the Storting on Diversity through Inclusion and Participation. The Government finds the new diversity natural and desirable and the report will lay the foundation for a new, more inclusive understanding of what it means to be Norwegian.

Presentation of Report

PETTER WILLE, Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, said that Denmark had recently decided to take measures to improve follow-up procedures for concluding observations. Those measures included more systematic follow-up consultations between authorities and civil society and distributing the concluding observations even more widely than previously.

Highlighting some new developments that had taken place, Mr. Wille said that a large step forward towards more comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation had been reached in June 2005 when Parliament approved the Act Prohibiting Discrimination based on ethnicity and religion. In June 2005, Parliament also approved the Act on the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombudsman and an Equality and Anti-Discrimination Tribunal. In addition to the civil enforcement of the Anti-Discrimination Act, the Ombudsman was also mandated to deal with other anti-discrimination.

The Act concerning legal relations and management of land and natural resources in the county of Finnmark was adopted on 17 June 2005 to meet Sami demands for fairer legislation and reflect the Sami’s historic and cultural affiliation with and their traditional rights to lands and waters.

As of January 2006, the responsibility for integration and diversity policy, as well as coordination of the policy towards the Sami people and national minorities and migration issues, was transferred to the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion, to emphasize employment and social inclusion in a more comprehensive way. The Government was currently preparing a proposal for a new immigration act, which was expected to be submitted to parliament in spring 2007. A new Nationality Act would enter into force in September 2006 and the Government was currently considering expanding the scope of its anti-discrimination legislation to include areas such as sexual orientation, disability and age.

Mr. Wille noted that the Government had prepared an action plan on the integration and inclusion of the immigrant population to ensure that as many people as possible participated in the work force, to prevent development of a schism in living conditions following ethnic divisions, and to ensure equal opportunities for immigrants and their descendants. The Government would also launch an action plan to combat poverty and a white paper would contain improved and targeted measures to combat poverty and social exclusion. In that regard, the Government viewed participation in the labour market as the most important tool to fight poverty and exclusion for the most marginalized individuals and groups.

Some government efforts to increase immigrant recruitment included requiring all government agencies to interview at least one qualified applicant with an immigrant background, Mr. Wille said. Public entities were also obliged to report on the percentage of the workforce with immigrant background, and the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion had initiated a dialogue with managers of State-owned companies with an aim to increase the recruitment of immigrants.

Oral Replies by the Delegation to Written Questions Submitted in Advance

Responding to written questions submitted in advance, the delegation said, concerning data on ethnic groups, that the Norwegian authorities did not collect data on ethnic characteristics. They did, however, have comprehensive and updated statistics on immigrants and persons with immigrant backgrounds. There were 387,000 immigrants, or 8.3 per cent of the population, among whom 319,000 were first generation immigrants.

Concerning indigenous people and consultation, the estimated population of the Sami was 40,000. The Government had signed an agreement with the Sami Parliament setting out procedures for consultation, which applied in all matters that might directly affect Sami interests and covered all tangible and intangible forms of Sami culture. Currently there were ongoing consultations concerning issues such as the act on reindeer-herding, and the development of a mandate for a study on Sami and other rights to fishing in the sea outside the county of Finnmark.

On the issue of discrimination against the Sami people, the delegation said there was a survey of the Sami people’s own experience of racism and discrimination. A main finding was that the majority of respondents had not experienced discrimination over the past two years. Of the 25 per cent that said they had experienced discrimination because of their Sami background, many mentioned the public authorities’ lack of follow-up of their obligation to answer Sami speakers in the Sami language, among others, in the health sector.

The delegation drew attention to funds allocated to an exit programme to assist young people who wished to leave racist and nationalist groups. Through the Urban Youth Projects programme funding had been allocated to two different districts in Oslo to dissolve neo-Nazi groups. Today those groups were not visible and showed almost no activity.

With reference to the East Sami people, the delegation said they traditionally lived in what was now the border area between Norway, Finland and Russia. Due to their small number and affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church and Russian culture, the East Sami in Norway became very vulnerable to “Norwegianization”. The situation of the East Sami minority was not addressed in the Finnmark Act on the principle of non-discrimination between ethnic groups in the same area. The East Sami would, however, have the opportunity to submit claims to the commission and the court that are to be established under the Finnmark Act to deal with claims relating to land rights within the county of Finnmark.

To improve protection of the East Sami culture, the Government, based on a proposal of the Sami Parliament, had decided to establish an East Sami museum, to which 30 million krona had been allocated. It was hoped the museum would also serve as a cultural institution to aid the survival of the East Sami culture.

The Norwegian Centre for Human Rights had been organized as a multi-disciplinary centre under the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo. The Government had granted the Centre status as a National Institution for Human Rights. The centre conducted research, monitoring and advisory services, educational programmes, information and networking, but did not deal with individual cases, the delegation said.

` The delegation drew attention to the fact that, among new mechanisms to better combat racism, prosecuting authorities had instituted a routine where all reported incidents of racist activity – prosecuted or not – were to be reported semi-annually to the Prosecutor General.

Norway did not have any immediate plans of introducing a formal prohibition against racist organizations. The delegation said Norway was of the view that Norwegian law effectively prohibited racist organizations. Moreover, the Government feared that an explicit prohibition would have the unwanted side effect of lending legitimacy to racist organizations.

In response to reports of the high incidence of discriminatory police stops, the delegation said that Parliament had agreed to the introduction of visible numbers on police uniforms and identity cards in order to make it easy for those wishing to complain to identify police officers. Those arrangements were introduced in January 2005 and would be evaluated by the National Police Directorate in this fall. The Ministry of Justice had also funded two projects to obtain reliable and verifiable information on the relations between the police and people of ethnic minority backgrounds. Meanwhile, the police had initiated long-term confidence building measures, including improved training of officers and encouragement of contacts with the local ethnic minority organizations.

Regarding reports that under the Immigration Act a non-citizen could be remanded to custody on the mere suspicion of having provided false identity papers, and that there was no maximum time limit for such detention, the delegation said that a non-citizen could be remanded to custody under such suspicion, but the maximum time limit for such custody was 12 weeks, unless special grounds were present. Such grounds included having consciously worked against attempts to establish correct identity or refusal to cooperate in establishing identity.

On the issue of health care, the delegation said that everyone was entitled to necessary assistance to combat communicable diseases. Municipalities were required to provide essential health services to everyone living in or temporarily residing in that municipality, including refugees and asylum-seekers. Such assistance was guaranteed by the Municipal Health Services Act, the Hospital Act, the Act concerning patients’ rights and the Communicable Diseases Control Act.

The Council for Professional Training of Judges in Norway offered a training course for judges on multicultural questions and offered international study tours for judges to The Hague. In addition, the Council had for several years offered a course focusing on the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as other human rights training courses.

With regard to prosecutors, the delegation said that the Director of Public Prosecutions had arranged two seminars (in 2003 and in 2006) on the topics of criminal racism and racial discrimination. The next such seminar was scheduled for 2007.

The National Police Directorate had ordered the Norwegian Police University College to provide special training on topics such as diversity and ethics for representatives from all police districts and units. It had also started a course for third year students on the police and diversity, and was considering including diversity as a compulsory subject.

On the role and mandate of the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombudsman, the delegation said that in addition to the civil enforcement of the Anti-Discrimination Act, the Ombudsman also enforced other anti-discrimination legislation, the Gender Equality Act, and the anti-discrimination provisions in the Working Environment Act and housing legislation. The new mechanism was expected to give a more comprehensive enforcement in cases of multiple discrimination. The Ombudsman also had a duty to provide guidance in cases concerning legislation not enforced by the Ombudsman.

To date the Ombudsman had received 24 complaints regarding ethnic discrimination, and 59 requests for legal guidance. Only one complaint – concerning linguistic skills in an employment announcement – had resulted in a formal opinion. The other complaints were still in process.

Oral Questions Raised by the Rapporteur and Experts

PATRICK THORNBERRY, the Committee Expert serving as Country Rapporteur for Norway, thanked Norway for their thorough replies and for the good will they showed in their dialogue with the Committee. In that regard, he would have appreciated the participation of non-governmental organizations in the context of the dialogue with the State party.

Mr. Thornberry drew attention to the fact that, in legal terms, the incorporation of the Convention into the Anti-Discrimination Act meant that it did not prevail over domestic legislation. He noted that other instruments, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, had been incorporated at a higher level. He wondered what would happen in the event of a contradiction between other statutory law and the provisions of the Convention.

The Government had also omitted the reference to “race” as a grounds for discrimination in the new Act. Mr. Thornberry thought that that would lead to an interesting discussion among the Committee members. It would require further thought as to any protection gaps that might leave.

Noting the explanations for not specifically prohibiting racist organizations in Norwegian law, Mr. Patrick said that he appreciated those explanations, but that did not void the obligation to put such legislation in place. An argument could be made that the existing legislation formed a network that effectively covered the requirement, but in that case he was not sure why the Government did not just go ahead and enact specific legislation.

According to the report, there were different ways of being Norwegian. Under the pressure of globalization many countries were undergoing mutations of their identity. What Mr. Thornberry was interested to know was what kind of acceptance such concepts received in the country.

One area that the Committee was increasingly concerned with regarded the links between discrimination and anti-discrimination efforts. In that regard, it would be interesting to have more information on suspects held under terrorism laws.

Mr. Thornberry called attention to the fact the Norwegian Government paid compensation to Romani Travellers for the negative effects of previous assimilation policies. He commended Norway for its work in training of judges, police and other officials on human rights and discrimination issues. He also noted the efforts of the Government to address the triple discrimination faced by female immigrants with HIV/AIDS.

Mr. Thornberry said that the East Sami appeared to be a particularly vulnerable group and in greatest need of protection. If action was not taken to stabilize their situation soon it might be that their culture would be lost irretrievably. In that regard, he was not satisfied with the Government’s position that there were no special programmes with regard to the East Sami as there was already the Finnmark Act for the Sami people and the Government had a principle of not non-discrimination between ethnic groups within the same area. In that connection, he wondered if particularly vulnerable groups did not have a right to special treatment.

Other Experts raised questions and made comments on various subjects, including the need for better data regarding minorities; what methods were used to improve the employment opportunities for different groups of immigrants; to what extent barriers for migrants to employment were owing to discrimination; drop-out rates for immigrants in higher education; what it meant to be Norwegian today; amendments to the burden of proof in cases alleging racism; and sensitization programmes for the police and for the media.

An Expert was concerned about statistics being compiled on the basis of Western and non-Western countries, and he further questioned the basis on which countries were considered to fall in one or the other category.

Concerning the Sami, an Expert wondered why the Sami information centre was put in Finnmark county, rather than in Oslo; he would have thought the purpose was to educate the rest of the population about the Sami people. An Expert also asked how many languages the Sami people spoke.

Statement by Norwegian Centre for Human Rights

INA LUDVIGSEN, Legal Adviser of the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, said that the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights had in April this year obtained its full accreditation as Norway’s National Institution. It conducted educational programmes, research, monitoring advisory services, information and networking. It did not hear individual cases or complaints, nor did it conduct on-site, factual or other monitoring.

As had been noted by the Committee, Ms. Ludvigsen said, while the Human Rights Act incorporated several human rights instruments, including the European Convention on Human Rights, the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, giving those instruments precedence over domestic laws, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination had been incorporated as part of the Anti-Discrimination Act and did not have precedence over domestic law. It was the view of the Centre that the Convention should be given the same status as those other conventions. In that regard, the Centre called attention to the fact that the new Government had promised to incorporate the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women – which was currently implemented via the Anti-Discrimination Act – in the Human Rights Act, thus giving it precedence over domestic law. That strengthened the argument for the same to be done for the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Statement by Office of the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombudsman

LARS CHRISTENSEN, Deputy Director of the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombudsman, said that the Ombudsman had a twofold task: first, it was an alternative to the courts in discrimination cases. It acted as a legal adviser, an investigator, and judge. The Ombudman’s decisions were not legally binding, but the Tribunal’s were, within limits. Secondly, the Ombudsman was mandated to promote equality by monitoring the general situation on all the different grounds of discrimination, issuing reports, arranging conferences and taking part in public debates. The Ombudsman was also tasked with providing employers with special guidance regarding ethnic diversity.

On the issue of discriminatory stops by police, while to date the Ombudsman had not received complaints directly, owing to media reports, the Ombudsman had taken the initiative to contact the police and had discussed the issue with the police authorities in Oslo, as well as the Police Directorate.

Response by Delegation to Oral Questions

The delegation, speaking on the issue of the Finnmark Act, said that the Sami People had collective and individual rights to land in Finnmark. The same applied to rights of reindeer herders, as set out in the Reindeer Herding Act.

The Finnmark Act also provided for the creation of the Finnmark Commission, which would investigate the rights to land. The Commission was not a court, and therefore it did not depend on claims being brought to it, but could undertake investigations on its own right, the delegation said. The Commission was required to issue reports following completion of its investigations and a written statement of its views as to land rights. The Finnmark Act also provided for a tribunal to hear appeals for those seeking appeal from Finnmark Commission findings.

The delegation noted the use of the term bi-national State by the country Rapporteur, by which he understood Norway was a State organized on the territory of two peoples: the Sami and the Norwegians. The delegation would be proud to acknowledge that. However, it pointed out that there was no foundational agreement such as existed in New Zealand.

Regarding the resource centre for indigenous people, it was located in Kautokeino in Finnmark county. The delegation explained that there had, indeed, been a long debate about where to situate the Centre and it had been located in Kautokeino because it had been important to the Sami Parliament for them to have it in Sami-land. The delegation agreed with the Expert’s observation that the purpose was to inform the population, but he noted that information these days was most often accessed over the Internet, and the Centre had an extensive website.

There were two Sami languages: Southern Sami, and Northern Sami, but Northern Sami was by far more widely spoken and was generally what people meant when referring to the Sami language, the delegation explained.

The delegation said that they did have comprehensive updated statistics on immigrants and persons with immigrant backgrounds and they had distributed some of those that had been gathered by the NGO, Statistics Norway. They now had an immigrant population coming from over 20 countries. The statistics estimated there were 40,000 Samis. The reason the statistics on the Sami were so general was that they relied primarily on self-identification.

The delegation noted that Statistics Norway collected data on national background, but there were already debates on how long those born in Norway of immigrant parents would be considered immigrants. At the moment, however, there were very few third generation immigrants.

Immigrants from Nordic countries were often looked at differently from other immigrants, for historical reasons, the delegation admitted. Statistics did distinguish between Western and non-Western countries. Western countries included Nordic countries, Western Europe, and North America. The reason for those broad classifications was that otherwise the numbers were simply too small to make for good statistical analysis.

Regarding the attitudes of the population, the delegation said that according to a survey 7 out of 10 Norwegians felt that immigrants made an important contribution to Norwegian society. However, 4 out of 10 felt that immigrants were a cause of insecurity. Also, 9 out of 10 said that they would not mind having an immigrant as a neighbour.

Turning to the issue of the greater unemployment rate among immigrants as opposed to the rest of the population (8.2 as opposed to 2.6 per cent), language and skills barriers were factors. However, discrimination could also be a factor. Surveys had showed that employers still were hesitant to hire immigrants, even if they had the requisite skills for a particular job. A number of laws, including the Working Environment Act and the new Anti-Discrimination Act, addressed that situation, and several procedures had been put into place to combat such discrimination. The follow-up service was one of the most important measures to ensure a higher employment rate among that group, the delegation observed.

On the question of burden of proof in discrimination cases, the delegation said that the Anti-Discrimination Act provided for a shared burden of proof. Complaints of discrimination would be considered as proved unless the accused did not offer substantial proof that such discrimination had occurred.

Responding to queries about the legal status of the Convention, the delegation noted the Norwegian Government was currently contemplating the incorporation of the Convention in its Human Rights Act, thus giving it precedence over domestic legislation. Currently, if there were inconsistencies between the Convention and a Norwegian statute, only in the rare case of a domestic statute enacted after the Convention was incorporated and in which it was clear that the new act had specifically contemplated the inconsistency in question could a court uphold the domestic legislation over the Convention. However, such a case had never occurred.

Racist utterances and freedom of expression in Norwegian society had been hotly debated following a case that had split the Norwegian Supreme Court. Following that case, a new Article 100 of the Norwegian Constitution concerning freedom of expression had been adopted in 2004, which provided greater restrictions. Currently, there appeared to be a broad consensus on the changes to Norwegian law to prohibit racist utterances.

In a clarification, the delegation noted that the Romani People’s Fund had been allocated by the Storting in 2004 not for individual complaints, but as collective compensation for earlier injustices. The annual return on the Fund, some krone 3.9 million, would be used to finance measures and activities that advanced knowledge of the history of the Romani people/Travellers and to help preserve and develop their culture and language. A separate individual compensation scheme had been approved in 2005, and several applications concerning forced sterilizations and a few concerning forced settlement were currently in process.

Preliminary Concluding Remarks

PATRICK THORNBERRY, the Committee Expert who served as Country Rapporteur for Norway, thanked the delegation for their very precise and detailed replies and their serious and helpful attitude.

Recalling issues that had been raised by Experts, the incorporation of the Convention at a level at which its norms would be pre-emptory, was an important one. In that regard, Mr. Thornberry noted the delegation’s mention that a higher level of incorporation was being considered. Further reflection in the Committee would be needed on any consequences that would flow from Norway’s not adhering fully to the language of the Convention in the Anti-Discrimination Act, by omitting race as a category. Noting the new Anti-Discrimination Act and the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombudsman that had recently been put in place, they would have to see what effect the new architecture would have in time to reduce the salience or visibility of the race issue in Norway.

Mr. Thornberry noted the expansion of indigenous rights in the State party and thought they could all learn from Norway’s initiatives in that sphere. He recalled that Norway was among the first signatories to ILO Convention 169 on indigenous peoples. In that connection, he noted that the Sami were not included in the list of national minorities – owing, as he understood it, to the fact that the Sami preferred to be referred to as indigenous. He wished to underscore, however, that the Sami should not therefore be barred from measures targeting minority populations.

Mr. Thornberry took note of the tripling in size of the immigrant population in recent years. It was always important to keep abreast of attitudes in immigrant groups, and there was some good news in that direction that most Norwegians would be happy to have an immigrant neighbour.

There were always vestiges of the past in every society. Here, Mr. Thornberry referred to the compensation provisions for past practices. He welcomed this sign by Norway that it was committed to putting such practices forever behind it.

Mr. Thornberry welcomed the Norwegian approach which held that identity was not fixed, but there should be one set of laws for all and an adherence to core values. In that connection, he noted that the European Court of Human Rights was part of Norwegian core values.

There were inexorable processes of change that were transforming all of us, Mr. Thornberry said. The issue was how we dealt with that change.

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