Human rights in Mongolia

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Since its turn towards democracy in 1990, Mongolia has in principle acknowledged the concept of human and civic rights. “Human rights law,” according to one human-rights organization, “is a rapidly expanding area in the Mongolian legal system.”^[1] In September 2000, Mongolia unilaterally adopted the so-called “Millennium Goal 9,” which is “to strengthen human rights and foster democratic governance.” Writing in 2012 in the Jakarta Post, the secretary-general of the Indonesian Community who “led the first demonstrations for democracy and reforms in Mongolia,” that “the passion for freedom and human rights” is “palpable in his being.”^[2] Addressing an audience at the Asia Society in New York in 2011, Elbegdorj Tsakhia said: “Freedom, human rights, justice, the rule of law, those values can be enjoyed, even by the poor people, even by poor herdsman in Mongolia.” The desire for human rights, he said, “is always there,” in all people. “Sometimes that desire can be crushed by tyranny. But it will rise again. That is Mongolia.”^[3]

Yet despite Mongolia's economic and social progress since the end of Communism, the “heritage from the old totalitarian regime,” according to one observer, “is a negative influence on the realization of human rights in Mongolia.” Official abuse of power is widespread, and law-enforcement officers “do not adequately respect the security and liberty of the people.” While the media report frequently on human-rights violations, “most people, except lawyers and professors, have no systematic knowledge on human rights to be able to properly appreciate the news on human rights....People begin to see the real meaning of human rights only after suffering injustice.”^[4]

A report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Mongolia indicated in December 2012 that while Mongolia “is currently experiencing a major resource boom and the country is on the brink of one of the most dramatic transformations in its history,” with the mining of mineral wealth and foreign investment “expected to triple the national economy by 2020,” the country “ranks disappointingly among the worse countries in the international human development index (110 out of 187 according to the 2011 Human Development Index).”^[5]

Among the serious human-rights problems that face Mongolia, especially within the police and security sector, are the abuse of prisoners by police, uneven law enforcement, poor prison conditions, arbitrary arrest, excessively long periods of pretrial detention, judicial corruption, lack of media independence, government secrecy, domestic violence, and trafficking in persons. Discrimination “on the basis of ethnic origin, language, race, age, sex, social origin, or status” is forbidden, and there is official sexual equality “in political, economic, social, cultural fields, and family.”^[6] Increasing attention has been paid recently to the human-rights impact of the rapid expansion of the mining industry in Mongolia, which in many cases has had a deleterious impact upon the environment of traditional herders and therefore upon their everyday lives and occupational prospects.