Haiti in the international Exhibition of Milan: Expo Milano 2015
This exhibit during which Haiti was honored on July 10th presented Haitian fashion, farming, and cooking. This day was especially dedicated to Haiti.
A total of 150 countries were present in Milan for the occasion. Among them the United States, Germany, Italy, England, Japan France, Argentina, Brazil, Angola Qatar, Nepal, Haiti, Togo, Zimbabwe and the Dominican Republic.
Every country had a pavilion revealing the identity of the country with its customs and its traditions. Haiti’s pavilion was offered by Italy and would have cost 1.2 million dollars, according to the newspaper The Nouvelliste.
A small detached pavilion but decorated with a lot of care, revealing the country’s original flavor.
We noticed in Milan the presence of the Prime Minister Evans Paul, the husband of the designer Maguy Durcé.
There were also designers and stylists such as Sybille Denis Touat, Maguy Durcé, Maelle David, Michaëlle Baussan, Miko Guillaume. Daphnée Karen Floréal, Michel Chateigne, Marie Lucie Cadet (MALOU), Stella Jean. The cooking of Gladys D. Nazemi and her collaborators was very appreciate judging by the crowd that rushed for three hours to go taste the popular, delicious dishes which make our country unique.
This was not the first time that Haiti was present at this exhibit. Under the government of President Dumarsais Estimé, Haiti was even the host country of the World Fair.
It was in 1950, for the occasion of the bicentennial of the city of Port-au-Prince.
The year’s theme was: "Feed the planet, Energy for life." During his presentation, the Prime Minister was eager to underline that "The participation of Haiti with Expo Milano 2015, had a double significance. It is a question for Haiti, on the one hand to protect the historical heritage of the Amerindians by presenting their nutritional best practice, for the benefit of its population of more than 10 million inhabitants and, on the other hand, to share its heritage with the visitors of the universal exhibit.
The head of government paid tribute to Gladys Exil Guyteau, commissioner at Expo Milano 2015 who, "Thanks to her dedication, and her patriotism outdid herself to ensure the Haiti’s participation."
The Italian authorities had been eager to offer a copious lunch to the Haitian delegation and the Prime Minister offered a book to the Italian authorities highlighting the places of interest of the country.
Monseigneur Pierre André Pierre was a member of the Haitian delegation in Milan. "Ayiti paka pa la," he declared with pride. He mentioned the partnership between Notre the Dame University of Haiti, the University of Milan Aquaplus, AVSI and the Rotary club of Milan who all contributed to the searches for the development of the MORINGA (Benzolive) in the country.
Maguy Durcé, special adviser to the Prime Minister and the coordinator of Haiti’s participation in Expo Milano 2015, underlined to The Nouvelliste that Haiti’s participation in the event had not exceeded 200,000 dollars thanks to the Italian authorities who donated the pavilion.
Expo Milano 2015 will continue until October 31st, 2015. Like the other countries, Haiti is not going to close the doors of its pavilion, even if it already had its special day on July 10th.
At the beginning of renovation of the runway of the airport …
Work on the rehabilitation of the runway of the Toussaint Louverture International Airport began on Tuesday, July 7th. The work aims at returning the runway in compliance with the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
The Haitian authorities agreed to complete these projects to avoid penalties from the ICAO. The recent inspections revealed that the runway is unfit to support the loads of jumbo jets. The basement of the platform must be treated to allow it to have a stronger support structure, explained the engineer Jean Marie Vorbe.
The work will allow the width of the runway to be enlarged. It will go from 42 to 60 meters following the recommendations of the ICAO. At the same time the width of the traffic lane, which channels the traffic towards the main terminal, will be practically doubled going from 23 to 44 meters.
The work will be realized over one year by the Haitian firm Vorbe and Son Construction and Razel, a French company that specializes in civil engineering.
The last renovation work on the runway was completed in 1988 by the French firm, Fougerolle. Twenty-seven years later a new rehabilitation is essential, explained Vorbe.
Under Michel Martelly's administration, several renovation projects have been realized at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport, more notably the enlargement of the departure and arrival rooms.
Statelessness at the UN: Reaffirming the Right to Nationality
By: Sebastian Kohn & Katrine Thomasen
Today the UN’s Human Rights Council—a body responsible for promoting and protecting human rights around the world—passed an important resolution on the right to nationality, focusing specifically on women and children. This is an important step to further strengthen international legal norms in this area. It is also a strong indication of increasing understanding and concern for those who have no nationality anywhere—the stateless—and those who experience severe discrimination when they attempt to obtain proof of their nationality.
The resolution is the culmination of nearly two years of advocacy by the Open Society Justice Initiative. The idea was proposed to the US Department of State in the autumn of 2010 as a measure to strengthen children’s right to nationality, an issue that overlaps in significant ways with the department’s concern with discrimination against women in nationality laws and practices. In early June 2012, a draft resolution was presented to other states in Geneva—where the Human Rights Council meets three times every year—after which negotiations about the content began. The Justice Initiative made an intervention during the session of the council to highlight the importance of this resolution.
Statelessness affects more than 12 million people around the world, among whom the most vulnerable are children. The Justice Initiative estimates that as many as five million may be minors. The consequences of lack of nationality are numerous and severe. Many stateless children grow up in extreme poverty and are denied basic rights and services such as access to education and health care. Stateless children’s lack of identity documentation limits their freedom of movement. They are subject to arbitrary deportations and prolonged detentions, are vulnerable to social exclusion, trafficking and exploitation—including child labor.
Perhaps the most detrimental consequence of statelessness for children is with respect to education. While some countries do offer educational opportunities to stateless children, many do not. In Malaysia, stateless children of Indian, Filipino, or Indonesian descent in Selangor and Sabah are frequently denied access to basic education in state schools: if a child’s birth certificate has “foreigner” written on it, or if the child doesn’t have a birth certificate at all, the child is simply unable to enroll. Similarly, in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights case of Yean and Bosico v. The Dominican Republic, the two applicants—both children—had been arbitrarily denied Dominican nationality. As a result they were barred from going to school since identity documents were a pre-requisite to enroll. Denying children a right to education can cripple entire communities for generations to come.
Few stateless children are able to obtain passports or other travel documents. This has serious implications for their right to freedom of movement, and bars them from travelling abroad to visit relatives or pursue educational opportunities. Similarly, the right to healthcare and social security is severely compromised for many stateless children. Statelessness jeopardizes their parents’ economic opportunities, and many grow up under conditions of extreme poverty, where access to medical treatment and immunizations are scarce.
Evidence from some parts of the world suggests that stateless children are at greater risk of human trafficking and other forms of exploitation. This connection is evident in the case of the Hill Tribes in Thailand, for example, who—because they are not ethnic Thais—have struggled with statelessness for generations.
The resolution by the Human Rights Council acknowledges these important challenges faced by stateless children and calls on governments around the world to reform legislation that discriminates against women. Indeed, one important cause of statelessness among children is the violation of women’s right to confer nationality to their off-springs. According to UNHCR, at least 26 countries still have gender discriminatory nationality laws. For example, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia—both members of the Human Rights Council—do not allow their female citizens to transmit nationality to their children. In a place like Kuwait, where an estimated 100,000 people are stateless, children of a Kuwaiti woman and a stateless man thus inherit the father’s predicament. On a positive note, many countries including most of North Africa, have recently reformed their nationality laws.
The resolution highlights many important international legal norms, including the right to free birth registration—a crucial measure to reduce the risk of statelessness. The resolution also calls upon states to protect the right to due process in all nationality-related matters, and to provide effective remedies where the right to nationality has been violated.
The resolution does, unfortunately, fall short of accepted treaty standards on one point. More than 100 countries have an explicit obligation to grant nationality to children born on their territories who would otherwise be stateless. This obligation is also implicit in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by all but two countries. The council resolution, however, only encourages states to “facilitate, in accordance with their national law, the acquisition of nationality by children born on their territories or to their nationals abroad who would otherwise be stateless.” Moreover, the resolution fails to acknowledge the right to nationality for children not born in the country where they habitually reside. International law requires states to ensure that all stateless children have access to nationality through a process of facilitated naturalization, regardless of place of birth. Unfortunately this provision—which was proposed by Costa Rica—was opposed by several states including Algeria, China, Egypt and Iran and was struck from the draft resolution.
Nevertheless, the resolution reiterates many of the crucial norms in this area. It was unanimously adopted and does as such represent a broad consensus among governments about the state of international law in this area.