According to the Decree of the President to develop the National Strategy on human rights, Prime Minister of Ukraine has instructed all ministries and departments to submit their proposals concerning the National Strategy to the Ministry of Justice. Then, the Cabinet of Ministers ought to prepare the strategy in collaboration with the Office of the Ombudsperson, civil community and international organizations.

 

Valeriya Lutkovska noted: "We are ready to submit the National Strategy on human rights to the Government to be used as a basis for further work." She underlined that the representatives of the most authoritative human rights civil society institution actively participated in drafting the strategy. "Clearly, it is impossible to prepare the National Strategy without taking into account Ukraine's international obligations in the field of human rights. These should be not only regional commitments, including commitments to the Council of Europe, but also obligations in accordance to the Universal Periodic Review's recommendations and the UN institutions' recommendations on Ukraine's implementation of the provisions of different Conventions. It is quite a large amount of information that must necessarily be taken into account in the preparation of this document," said Ms. Lutkovska.

 

Authorized Representative of the Ombudsperson Mykhailo Chaplyha, presenting the draft of the National Strategy on human rights, highlighted that the main principle of this document is "nothing for us without us." In other words, while developing the strategy the state should not do something for society without the involvement of civil society representatives.

 

As noted, the future strategy should be realistic and specific, focus on key fundamental things, and consider challenges facing our country today. The priorities of the strategy were shaped by the following criteria: systemic problems arising from the European Court's practices, the UN Committees' decisions, challenges of Euromaidan, Crimea's occupation and the anti-terrorist operation in Eastern Ukraine.

 

Arkadiy Bushchenko, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, stressed the importance of human rights integration into the state's policy due to this strategy's implementation in contrary to being optional, additional aspect of the state's activity.

 

Thus, there was a discussion on the main directions and principles that should form the basis of future strategies.