Okay, but I think colleagues we are ready to start so warm welcome as we always say good morning afternoon or evening wherever you are because we have colleagues from all regions from Malaysia to even America's Europe colleagues from Africa and of course Asia so it's great to see you online. This is our monthly peer-to-peer exchange webinar so if there are some colleagues who are joining for the first time this is really an opportunity to exchange around the topic in a very informal way to brainstorm about it to ask questions share practices examples it's an opportunity to pause a little bit in the day-to-day work see what are maybe some new additional ways how to engage on the human rights from how to use effectively human rights mechanisms and strengthen our human rights engagement so today we are focusing on collaboration with the working group on arbitrary detention so one of the special procedures mandates as you know they are over 50 special procedures mandates most of them thematic ones and this is an important mandate for UNHCR and any entity working in displacement context because unfortunately arbitrary detention is really touching on all of the context in which we are working in the context of displacement as well as statelessness of course so today's webinar will be actually composed if we can go to the next slide please yes ground rules colleagues you know them very well already we have maximum one hour and a half together this webinar will be recorded we will also share a brief summary with you afterwards if you can keep your microphone on mute but on the contrary we invite you to very actively use the chat and I cannot stress this enough because those peer exchanges are also an opportunity for you to connect between you maybe you hear that Zahra or Mari is mentioning an example or is giving providing a good practice that you are interested in and is related to your also operation so you can reach out to them afterwards and take it as an opportunity to build your networks of colleagues and expand this champion's network on human rights engagement so please use the chat actively we will be constantly monitoring it and bringing back then the questions to the panelists and speaking about panelists if we can go to the next slide we have three colleagues with us today Margarita Nechaeva, Francesco Alfonso and Luana Benjamín you see them on the camera they are with us today and they are supporting the work of the working group on arbitrary detention so today the program is that Margarita Francesco and Luana will share with us some insight about the mandate and the functioning of the working group on arbitrary detention so that we are all on the same page I'm sure that everybody on the call will learn something new about the working group on arbitrary detention what are its functions some examples how it can be useful for us and then we will also and above all have an exchange so you can ask questions how this can be practically used in your operation if you have any clarification need of clarification for some of the aspects how this can be started in practice and so on so the objective of today's event is that we have a good understanding about how the working group on arbitrary detention works what is its mandate what it covers but also and very importantly how we can use it more strategically in the context of displacement so how we can link some of our work protection work advocacy work etc to better use of the working group of arbitrary detention very good so I think I will stop here already so that we have enough time for presentation and discussion thanks to all colleagues who are posting in the chat your introduction so please colleagues do introduce yourself in the chat it's fantastic to see that we have colleagues from Teheran to Marco to Congo Brazzaville DRC Congo as well as Mozambique Burkina Faso Rwanda Italy Iran Mogadishu Somalia Thailand chat that's fantastic colleagues so we really see here that this is a cross cutting topic if we can mute everybody it's a cross cutting topic relevant to all operations all regions of course and with that I give the floor to Margarita to get us started on the presentation on working group on arbitrary detention so over to you Margarita please hello everyone it's really a pleasure to exchange with such a wide range of colleagues and partners from around the world we're really grateful for this opportunity and hope that greater collaboration and yet more cooperation will come out of our exchange so I will start quickly presenting the mandate and then pass the floor to to my colleagues to explain a little bit more the core function of the mandate and then I'll close with the questions that were flagged to me as a particular interest to your field of practice so just if Peter if we could change the slide thank you so to quickly give you a background the working group has been established some 30 years ago in fact this year we will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the working group it's been established by the then Human Rights Commission following a relevant study on the arbitrary detention and the resolution has established a very particular human rights mechanism at the time mandating five independent experts from five different regional groups to to look into specific cases of alleged arbitrary detention that is the detentions that are alleged to be contrary to international law relevant treaties universal declaration of human rights and perhaps also some soft law that's been developing over the decades so when analyzing the as I as I mentioned could we could we go to another slide thank you so yes as I mentioned that the working group would be composed of five independent experts and the resolution would mandate the mechanism to function for three years at the time so as you can imagine it's been reviewed many renewed many times by Human Rights Council now next yes so the working group in discharging it mandate would take the information from all sources possible including the governments non-governmental partners in concerned individuals families are legal practitioners and UN partners of course and of course it will aim at discharging it's mandate with discretion objectivity and independence and in that I would mention that when reviewing a case from a particular country if this country coincides with the nationality of the expert that expert would abstain from the discussion of the case and this would be recorded in the official opinion of the working group afterwards next please so when analyzing a case on alleged arbitrary detention deprivation of liberty the working group would guide itself by both treaties and the so-called soft law and when we come to treaties of course that would be universal declaration of human rights and in particular the article three on right to life article nine ten eleven the covenant on civil and political rights and more specifically articles nine ten eleven and fourteen also the convention of course relating to the status of refugees of a 51 convention on elimination of all kinds of racial discrimination convention on the right of the child convention against torture international convention on the protection of migrant workers and their families and the convention on the right of person with disabilities if you would refer to the jurisprudence of the working group across the years you will see the reference to all these treaties in its dispositions next please and when it comes to the soft law these are just the examples of the bodies of principles and the standards that the working group would also refer to in uh deliberating a particular case so just to name a few either nice Nelson Mandela rules that figure prominently the body of principles for protection of all persons um under any form of detachment imprisonment the Beijing rules on the administration of juvenile justice the Bangkok rules on the treatment of women prisoners and so on next please so I would like to focus a little bit more on this slide which gives you a broad overview of the mandate of the working group so how does actually the working group look into the and these allegations of arbitrary deprivation of liberty first and foremost this is the I would say a core function of of our mandate and the function that is unique to all special procedures mandate is the regular communication procedure this procedure is actually so-called we can say an investigation on individual case that would involve communication with the government and the alleged victim or their representative and then it would lead to the adoption of the official opinion that is the UN official document determining whether this case is contrary to international law or not that is the core function that as I said it's a very unique instrument and my colleagues would elaborate a little bit more in detail on how to use it later on the second way and mechanism of the working group would be the urgent appeals and allegation letters these are the instruments that I used across all special procedures and in my recollection when we would come across a case of particular concern in the context of migration the working group would likely be joining an urgent appeal an allegation letter that would be led for example by the special reporter on the rights of migrants for example that we would not necessarily initiate although the working group can also initiate this mechanism but because we have a very unique instrument that could benefit potential victims in terms of the regular communication procedure would support other mandates in urgent appeals and allegation letters the third mechanism at the disposition of the working group are the country visits the working group usually conducts two country visits per year these are conducted by about three experts of the working group depending on their availability and these visits are always conducted at the official invitation of the host government so I would like to just in brackets pause here a little bit and say that in when we have you know a specific country visit in mind when it's all the dates being set we would usually reach out to our UN partners and to the civil society with a call for inputs that would then feed into the country assessment and we have had a very fruitful collaboration with UNHCR in on a number of country visits before and and also with the civil society and in fact I think the inputs that we have received from from both civil society and UNHCR has been pivotal in in terms of the gaining a greater understanding of the migration context in a particular country so and of course when the working group is actually on the ground conducting the visit it would meet the UN partners on the ground and it would also conduct a quite extensive meeting with the civil society that would be confidential and of course out of bounds for any governmental representative then I would mention that the working group of course has a part of thematic part in its annual reports and when it decides to to dedicate a specific specific issue in its annual report it would also call for inputs from the concerned entities or in fact the working group can also lead the study on a specific subject right now the working group has just conducted a study on the drugs in the context of detention and so right now the working group has no immediate plans for this year to conduct another study but as soon as you know this plan is made the working group again reaches its partners relevant partners in order to seek inputs and finally the working group conducts studies on deliberate and adopt deliberations which are a position of principles based on consistent set of practice on matters of general nature and in this context I would invite you to consult the working group's deliberation number five I know that Valerie has already mentioned it in the concept note of our peer-to-peer exchange but I would invite you to consult this deliberation number five which concerns specifically the deprivation of liberty in the context of migration in the later slides you will see the hyperlink to to this deliberation that might be useful so next at the meantime I just because I'm receiving messages colleagues we will share with you the presentation I may ask also Peter to share it in the chat so that you can see all the links and also maybe Peter if you can post the fact sheets or the background note about the mandate so please you don't need to worry you will have all the materials with you and over to you Margarita sure so the final point I would mention is that you will also see the link to the working groups methods of work which could be a useful referencing understanding in detail all the proceedings that my colleagues will later elaborate and finally I'd like to conclude my part of intervention when explain a little bit when the working group really would consider that the deprivation of liberty is in fact arbitrary the mandate has five legal categories to to refer to first would be when it finds no legal basis justifying the the detention and just to give you an example that would be when for example the person has served his or her sentence and it remains in detention or for example when there has been no arrest warrant presented at the at the time of the arrest and the rest has not been conducted in accordance with with the international standard or for example when the the national legislation is completely at odds with with the international standards the second category would be the detention resulting from the exercise of rights and freedoms guaranteed by the universal declaration and the covenant and I would like to stress in this context the article 14 of the universal declaration on the right to seek asylum and the article 12 of the covenant on the right to leave any country the category three of arbitrariness would be when all the rights to fair trial or some partially would be disrespected that that is for example when a person or a migrant in in the context of administrative detention would have no access to legal legal representative for example or when there would be no possibility of interpretation when the migrant does not understand the language he or she is being addressed at and is forced to undergo the proceedings in the language without the the assistance force category I think that's really the category of of the interest of our current exchange is a category four when asylum seekers immigrants or refugees are subjected to prolonged administrative custody without the possibility of review or remedy so I think that's the category four that we would maybe elaborate a little bit later on and you would also find in this presentation some links to the relevant jurisprudence that you could consult and finally category five which can be linked to category four as well as to other categories is when the detention is based on discrimination on discriminatory grounds so with this I would end my part and I'll pass the floor to my colleague Luana and Francisco who would explain you a little bit more on how our core function of our mandate works and how we can work together with this one over to you thank you very much Margarita and thank you everyone for being here so first of all I'll be discussing the criteria that the working group will look at to decide whether or not it should intervene on a case the first one is very important it's one of the most important it's the consent so we won't ask we will come back on this a little later and I'll give more details about that but preliminary we won't ask without the consent of the petitioner and the consent may be given by the victim themselves or a member of their family or their legal representative we also look at the urgency of the case the vulnerability of the alleged victim and so for example in cases where the person may be facing this is just to give a few examples but in cases where the person may be facing death penalty or where there's great concerns about their health this might prompt us to act because of the vulnerability of the victim we also look at the quality of the information I'm sorry would you like me to wait for the presentation I'm not sure if everyone can follow the presentation okay thank you so the one of the other criteria is the quality of the information provided so we look at the kind of facts that are provided the information the legal analysis the kind of allegations that are made in the submission we also will look at the reliability of the source so generally when we get a submission if we are missing some information if some things aren't clear we will go back to the source but we'll also make sure that the source is able to provide us concrete information and individualized information so we may be wary of our cases where the information is scarce or where the information is mostly based on is mostly based on media and sources we also look at the credibility of the information that we receive we rely on objective dependable facts so we look at how much tax are given to us in choosing the cases that we will take because we receive a large number of submissions we try to ensure a geographic distribution so we'll try to represent to have multiple countries multiple regions represented so we don't take cases from only for example only Asia from mostly one country we try to have a good geographic distribution and there is no requirement that the person that the victim or the alleged victim exhaust domestic remedies in fact in some cases petitioners will intentionally decide not to pursue domestic remedies because either they don't believe in the impartiality of the system or they fear reprisals so there's no requirement that domestic remedies be exhausted and there's no there's no requirement either that states ratify international human rights instruments the working group has found that the prohibition of arbitrary attention applies to all states regardless of the treaties that they have ratified we use various instruments of law as margarita has pointed out we look at customary law we look at use kogan's norms so there is no need for the states to have ratified certain instruments next slide please thank you so in regards to who can submit a case really mostly anybody so we can have cases from the person detained themselves we sometimes get cases from family members we often get cases from their legal representative we also work with governments in an intergovernmental organizations law firms submit cases non-governmental organizations we also work with national human rights institutions and of course the working group itself may choose to take up a case and as i'll come back to later the the confidentiality of the source is always kept so we will never divulge information about who submits the case for safety purposes and privacy purposes of course next slide please thank you so i'll go a little bit into how to submit a case so you can find on the first link the complete the the link to which the completed questionnaires and the sign consent form should be sent to so this is our generic email address and those forms so the questionnaire and the consent form can be found at the second the second link on the slide and this link contains consent forms and questionnaires in all three languages that the working group works in so that's English French and Spanish in addition to the questionnaire which i like to mention that we don't require that sources use that questionnaire we encourage them to use it but sources submit sometimes their own submissions the questionnaire however it gives a very good idea about what kind of information the working group will look at excuse me in addition to the questionnaire the sources may provide supporting documents or evidence however there is a requirement in the working groups methods of work that submissions be 20 pages or less so anything above 20 pages may not be considered by the working group and this requirement applies to both the submissions from the sources as well as the government's reply so the government's reply also is required to be under or 20 pages at the maximum next slide please thank you so in the submission what we like to find is an analysis of the alleged violations so in addition to the facts if you look at the questionnaire this is where you can see this very clearly there's a part about the facts we asked for example where the person was detained the circumstances of the detention but there's also an analysis part where we ask that the sources include an analysis of the alleged violation regarding fair trial norms so whether for instance a person was informed about the charges whether there was a warrant for their arrest allegations about the respect for or non-respect of the right to access a lawyer whether there was a possibility to review the detention whether the person was dropped before a judge so those are all allegations related to fair trial rights particularly concerning article nine of the universal declaration article 10 and article 9 and 14 of the covenant and civil and political rights in the cases of asylum seekers migrants and refugees there is a right for every migrant or every detained person in this context to have their detention reviewed and so the submission should include an analysis of violations in that regard so for instance whether the person was able to effectively challenge their detention whether their detention was periodically reviewed when it as it extends in time whether the detention was necessary and proportionate and of course in both cases of administrative detention but also criminal detention there may the source may want to include an analysis of whether the detention was based on discriminatory grounds and again this applies for administrative detention as well and that sorry next slide please that's it for that thank you okay so this is a question of consent that I was referring to earlier because the UN does not have news to ensure the safety of persons of persons that are the subject of submissions and because there are fears of reprisals in certain cases we will not act unless we have specific consent from the person and again this consent is maybe given by a family member or the legal representative as well as of course the petitioners themselves the consent is concerns three different things so the first part of the consent is whether the person will agree to have their name in a communication to the government and this may become clear as we explain the process of submitting communications to the government and adopting opinion the second part of the consent is whether the person agrees to their name being published in the opinion because the opinion will be made public on the working groups website and the third part is whether the person agrees to their name being made public in an annual report and the report to the Human Rights Council of course in some cases we may not we may not include the name of the person so if there are protection concerns and especially in cases of minors we will not include the name of the minor and as I said earlier for privacy and security purposes the identity of the source will never be sorry will never be revealed. Next slide please. Oh I think I will give the floor to Francisco now thank you very much for your attention thank you and Francisco the floor is yours. Hello everyone thank you Lorna and thank you also Valeri and colleagues at UNHCR for having us again and thank you all for being here and having an interest in the working group and I'm going to take the discussion now to the procedure of the working group in which it considers these individual cases and how it develops and what happens after it has decided that our attention is arbitrary and how it reaches that decision etc so and we're going to continue exploring how we work here and how you can use this for the protection of the victims that you work with and so after receiving a case among the many that the working groups received and analyzing the elements present there the geographical balance the risk etc also the formal requirements such as the consent etc that my colleagues already explained and the working group will hear and prepare a summary of the case a small report about the allegations of arbitrary attention and the factual elements that were presented to it and it will transmit to this this small report this summary to the government to give to the government an opportunity to to provide its side of the story in a way its defense its views as to why this person is detained and the reasons why the agents of the state have taken this course of action and how is this in conformity of not with international human rights law and with the relevant standards that are applicable to the mandate of the working group which I got it already referred to at the beginning now so so the the the idea of this is to have a contradicting views of the facts and of the case to see and to control post them and to see what what comes out of this opposition of views and so so the the working group will give 60 days to the government to provide it with a response to these allegations and if the government for any reason for example COVID-19 but but any other reason needs more time to gather the information the methods of work of the working group allows to grant an additional 30 days extension so in total 90 days and it's the time frame that the the government can use to elaborate a response and submit a response to the working group and this includes an opportunity to to have an extension but needs to be requested within the first 60 days of that time lapse next slide please so after receiving this response from the government the working group will transmit it to the source to the petitioner to the complainant and so that it can provide a response to those comments and and and to those allegations made by the government for example and if it could challenge whether there was an arrest warrant produced or not etc or if the individual was taken before a judge etc so here you can really see how the opposing views are brought before the working group and this is what it makes it really interesting and a special procedure within the UN because we aim at being a quasi-judicial process it's not a court these are not judges but they really imitate the methodology to obtain the relevant information that is necessary to assess and analyze the case so this is the ideal case scenario however if the government decides not to engage and not to respond that's that's also a scenario that we foresee and that we deal with in some cases but that will not prevent the working group to continue considering the case and only with the information that it has managed to gather in the absence of a response from the government what is important is that the the government is granted an opportunity to defend itself and to really put forward the reasons why according to that government that person is detained next please so when we have let's say substantiated the file and we have all the information that we need and the working group could take these three different courses of action it could find that the person is or was arbitrarily detained and therefore request the relief of the person and not only that but if there was an arbitrary detention it's necessary to investigate why this happened because this was a human rights violation who was the the the agent of the state that was responsible or multiple agents of the state there needs to be an investigation and there needs to be responsible and held accountable and there also needs to be reparations to the victim because as any human rights violation a arbitrary detention need to be repaired through compensation and all the forms of reparation and so the working group will render what it calls an opinion a legal document official UN with the logo and etc in which in this legal opinion it will encapsulate all the elements of the case and the legal analysis and will go this way towards finding or not whether the person is or was arbitrarily detained and and act in consequence asking and for the investigation and their prices however if if the case brought before it does not contain all the elements of arbitrary attention although it's very rare because of the number of cases that we receive it's common that those that are considered by the working groups are the ones that have all the elements of arbitrary attention but it's also possible that during the analysis of the case given the response provided for by the government etc the working group could also find that there was no arbitrary attention or there is no arbitrary attention and but also it's possible that there is not enough information even though it conducted the procedure and it needs to continue considering the case in the future so cases can although rare and it has happened that cases are and deferred in their consideration so that the parties the government and the petitioner can have an opportunity to provide further information so that more analysis can be done on that case and other issues can be reached in the future so those are the three possibilities when when the working group considers this individual case and next please now um it it is relevant to mention also and I should have mentioned it earlier that these opinions are adopted during sessions of the working group so if if you don't mind don't pay attention to this slide right now just be reminded that the opinions the working group adopt these opinions in during sessions in the year and there are three sessions so the members of the working group come together to Geneva to deliberate and to analyze those cases obviously during the pandemic the meetings were held online but it's relevant to to point out that the opinions of the working group are adopted during periodic sessions and there are three sessions during the year no so that's how they they they they analyze the case they come together and they each of them is responsible for the presenting a number of cases and then they discuss about them and they adopt this opinion now now once the opinion is adopted we come back to this slide and as I said there's a it's a legal document with a legal analysis it tries to imitate the structure of a judicial ruling basically where where you have the facts the legal analysis and the disposition and and then this document is transmitted to the government after 48 hours of the government being notified the the the same document the same opinion is transmitted to the petitioner to the source and it is worth notice to notice that this is not the finalized document it's a it's a it's a advanced version of it but because the attention is a time sensitive issue we we try to move forward with with the notification as soon as possible because we under the methods of work of our mandate understand how this understanding every every day in detention is is is in arbitrary attention is is you know unacceptable so that's why an advanced and an edited version is is provided to the government to the source and then it's made public on the workgroups website however this document goes through further work because it goes to the editorial section in the UN then goes to translation and then it's published in in the UN official document system website in the six official languages and it's available to the public with with the details of the case the the response from the government the allegations by both parties etc so it's a very complete and very visible and official document in addition the working group of arbitrary of arbitrary attention every year presents a report before the human rights council which includes details about all of these opinions that are adopted so we report to to the to the human rights council about these opinions and as mentioned they are available both in the working groups website but also on the UN official document system website next please now and it is really interesting not only to see how the process of adopting an opinion goes but also what happens after and what what is the effect of an opinion being adopted and what what what we have seen in terms of the impact that we could have on each individual case no and so the working group has decided to to request the governments and and the sources to keep it informed within six months after the notification of the opinion after the transmission of the opinion and if the person has been released if there has been an investigation if those agents that were responsible have been identified and held accountable etc and if if if there has been compensation or and all the forms of reparation and also it is it is worth mentioning that these opinions once notified and transmitted to the parties can be reviewed by the working group the government or the source can request that a review of the opinion but only on the specific grounds that are well established on the methods of work and those are when when first the government has responded on time it can request a review if it has not responded it cannot request a review and and also then the request for review needs to be based on on on on facts that were not known at the time or that are new to the case next slide please now when I was mentioning that it's really useful it's really interesting to see what happens after the adoption of the opinion we have seen sources being very creative in in their advocacy towards increasing the pressure upon the governments to release individuals and they use these these opinions for that so it's the opinions of the working group even though they are not a judicial ruling they are very useful tools for demonstrating and documenting arbitrary deprivation of liberty not only in a particular case but also when you have multiple opinions and multiple cases adopted with regards to a particular topic or issue region country in groups of individuals etc it is also also useful to identify patterns and structural issues and then and these these opinions are also often brought before national courts and to to request the release of of the individuals to the judge and but also we have seen press conferences events books being made after opinions of the working group and cases that we have decided but not with the working group has decided and ideally obviously what we aim is to achieve is the release of of of the person that is under arbitrary attention and and and the measures being adopted by by the government to correct the situation to held accountable those responsible and and to prevent this type of violations from happening in the future but it's not always the same outcome for every case I will leave you until here thank you so much for for your attention again and I will now give the floor back to Margarita thank you Francisco thank you Loana I will wrap up our presentation quickly so as to give some time also for Q&A I see some you know activity in the chat box thank you so much for all your questions but just quickly to touch upon some of the issues that might interest you that we've been made aware of firstly the conditions of detention including the conditions of detention of migrants so the working group is not mandated per se to assess condition of detention however it may not conditions both in country mission reports or in its legal opinions if these conditions for example impede the ability of a regular review of detention in the context of migration or the conditions violate international standards requiring the respect for dignity of the persons deprived of liberty and when the working group detects that the conditions are falling below the standards they the working group would normally in its opinions make a direct reference of the case to the special rapporteur on torture or for example to special rapporteur on the rights of migrants so that would be the official reference to the attention of other special procedures and if you consult the deliberation number five on the arbitrary detention in context of migration this deliberation specifically notes that the administrative detention of migrants in the context of migration must not carry a punitive character so it must conform to certain standards and conditions then the question of the necessity and the length of detention of asylum seekers the working group is guided by the principle that the detention must be absolutely the exceptional measure and also for the shortest period possible and it should also be justified by legitimate purpose such as for example a processing or recording a claim or documenting an document in an entry so that that's the guiding principle and the second element is that it should be approved by judicial authority and regularly reviewed so there should be a mechanism for regular review and in authority should be also guided by of course the principle that it's exceptional and always seek alternative to detention in the community so I would also if you refer you to deliberation number five and you will also see the link to opinions jurisprudence of the working group that concerns specific specific context of immigration detention and I think that's linked to that opinion on Australia where in this context the working group has found that the detention is arbitrary because it lacks absolutely the legal purpose and there is no regular review mechanism in this case so it's the fact of indefinite next slide please so I think that's our last slide the detention of child asylum seekers so actually the working group has considered this issue very closely during its country visit to Greece that was not that long ago in December 2019 if you refer to the report which is hyperlinked you will see that you know the working group has considered questions of age assessment and protective custody of the minors asylum seekers but obviously it's guided by the principle that stage should prioritize best interest of a child and including the children that entered its territory in irregular manner and it must ensure that they are not detained and they are placed in facilities appropriate to their age if you would consult the country visit report you would find that the working group has seen unfortunate instances where children asylum seekers have been held in police stations which are obviously not appropriate facilities for their for them to be the detention of stateless persons the working group would consider that non-nationals including you know stateless persons in any deprivation situation of deprivation of liberty shall be granted access to a court of law empowered to order immediate release so that they basically should have a right to review the legality of their detention and also the deliberation number five highlights that the migration detention policies and procedures must not be discriminatory or make distinctions based on legal conditions of the person so they should not discriminate whether the person is stateless or not and finally on the issue of access to immigration detention I think that's one of the fundamental questions of fair trial standards and guarantees the working group is guided by the principle and standard that migrant detainees must enjoy the same rights as those detained in criminal justice or other administrative context including the right to legal representation contact with family interpreters as I've already mentioned and consular assistance I think so the right to access the detention of these categories of people is also very much scrutinized for example during the country visits of the working group so I think that's it from our part I'm sorry we've taken a little bit longer than we expected but I hope we can engage closely in Q&A and we'll be happy to answer your questions thank you so much thank you so much Margarita Luana and Francisco this has been very informative can I ask colleagues who are online if you can raise your hand if you learn something new today in this presentation or you can put an emoticon or you can put any reaction was there something new that I see yes some hands coming up if there was a small new element for you today did you learn something today oh fantastic I see a lot of colleagues raising also giving hands up thank you Benedict and others wow fantastic very informative you see the feedback thank you colleagues this is very useful you can put your hands down but it was a useful feedback so we heard how the working group is functioning what are the different possibilities of engagement from individual cases during the country visits thematic reports and beyond Peter has been very helpfully putting in the chat the different resources links as colleagues were speaking so you have all the different sources available in the chat so you can refer to them and and go more into details but we have a lot of questions so let me go immediately to them and I will bring them back to Margarita Luana and Francisco and you can take them distribute between yourself as you deem best fit but very interesting questions and in no particular order colleagues would be interested if how do so I start with one topic in case the countries did not ratify any relevant legal instruments how do you interact with the government so what is your basis for this discussion and exchanges but also if the detention is done by non-recognized authorities or non-state armed groups that are on part of the territory of a state do you also communicate with them or only with government counterparts so this would be and the second question but going forward are you also monitoring conditions in detention during your country visits is this part of your mandate or what you do when you go to countries and not only when do you conduct country visits but also are you open to receive in confidential manner information on the conditions in detention by various sources is that something that you are following up on as well colleagues were also interested if the working group is intervening in amicus crea cases if this is part of your mandate and if you have some examples but what happens also when the legal opinion is contradicting or not aligned with the national opinion that is issued so when the national authorities are contesting it or how do you actually follow up with the authorities when also you issue an opinion how is the working group engaged does it stop when you issue the opinion or is there something afterwards how do you follow up what if the government is not responding or the situation does not improve but is there any role of the working group following up on the prolonged administrative custody what is the definition of prolonged if you can go a little bit more into the definition and how do you deal with situations when the argument of the government counterparts or authorities are that they have not enough capacity not enough human resources resources financial resources so they say we would like to deal with it but actually we have there is willingness but not the capacity how do you deal with such situations so this is the first set of question but we also had two questions in terms of collaboration of with national human rights institutions commissions if you have some examples of collaboration with them and finally from Stefania whether you are also tackling the case of of stateless persons if the working group has worked on cases related to stateless persons so we heard of course in the context of migration asylum seekers refugees but this goes beyond to stateless persons so those are the questions that I gathered from the chat let us start with those and I see that we have more questions coming in but we will have them in the second round so over to you colleagues and we take it from here Fran do you want to start in regards to the first set of questions on what happens when the state has not classified specific instrument and what happens when we deal with a non-state and non-recognized entity on the territory of the state sure thank you thank you colleagues so basically to answer the first question if the state has not ratified the relevant covenants or treaties the working group will rely on the universal declaration of human rights which is let's say not subject to signature accession of ratification it's part of the UN customary international law so it's considered to be binding upon all UN member states basically so that's the answer to the first question also the jurisprudence of the working group and all the sources of law are relevant and often considered for example what has the international court of justice established in terms of for example procedure it helps us to inform our procedure a fair trial etc so that's the first question then if the attention is by a non-state actor the the the working group will normally engage only with states and different to other special procedures who will also be willing to engage with let's say companies or non-state armed groups the working group has a different a little bit more careful approach to this and it will go through the government concerned and especially if the government is occupying power in another territory but but it's for the opinions and the procedure to be effective to have some sort of possibility of success it needs to be through the permanent missions in Geneva of those governments so those are the channels that we use and I cannot recall an example in which the working group has adopted an opinion on the tension of an individual by a non-state actor in which the government that is relevant to that territory to that individual or to that non-state actor is it's not it's not it's not part of the procedure the will be always the counterpart of the petitioner and of the source that's it no the yeah thank you Fran perhaps I could address a couple of other questions that I noted and if we missed something maybe Luanda could also I would like to address the question on the monitoring of conditions or detention during the country visits well the working group has no direct mandate per se unlike the committee against torture to monitor such conditions but however having said that of course these would be reflected in the report if the conditions are are substandard or you know this would be noted as violating Nelson Mandela rules for example as impeding the ability of the detainees to to defend themselves and prepare for their defense effectively also and the working group would bring these to the attention of the relevant mandate holders of special procedures I'm mostly referring to the special rapporteur on torture but also special rapporteur on health among other like most prominent mandates whether we are open to confidentially receive submissions on conditions I think of course the working group would welcome all the submissions but I think this would be most effectively channeled to the committee against torture in in this respect because they they would have at their disposal more mechanisms to act and let's not forget that the working group can only visit the country upon official invitation of the government which might not necessarily be the case with you know the committee against torture what they are the question I think concerns the discrepancy between the national legislation and the working group's disposition so I you know when I was listening to this question I immediately I remember the the China jurisprudence on China I must mention that I'm the focal point for Asia Pacific so China figures quite prominently in our case law case load so this is very often the case when the the working group finds that the national legislation is overly broad or overly not specific enough so to embody all kinds of offenses and basically justify the detention the government would normally revert to us saying that everything has been conducted in accordance to with law most most notably article 105 of the criminal procedure code but the working group has found consistently that it's overly broad it does not have a specific legal certainty and in these instances I mentioned China but it can happen in all kinds of like you know in the context of Vietnam I recall that's been also the case if you look at the Vietnamese jurisprudence of the working group but the working group would consistently call if it sees really a pattern of of cases that evoke the same article that is basically inconsistent with the international norms the working group would call for the government to amend the national legislation and bring it in in conformity with the international legal obligations or if the state is not a state party to the ICCPR to bring it into the to bring into in the in the general standard of the international human rights legal framework and the last question that I noted was the definition of prolonged what is a prolonged detention and what happens when the government says that they don't have enough capacity and if you look at the working group's deliberation number five again the working group states that the detention must be absolutely exceptional and for the shortest possible time so there is no as such a threshold like beyond like three months it's too much but the working group would look into whether you know there have been there have been really legal necessity security national security like the security of the community I beg your pardon or whether there has been any alternative thought to to the migration detention or and whether this detention is being regularly reviewed and if you know in most of the cases when the working group has found that the detention is arbitrary in the migration context the major violation is basically either that the detention is automatic or whether there is absolutely no possibility of meaningful review of the continued detention and in cases when the government comes back to the working group saying that they don't have enough resources the working group would always I think point out to the fact that the detention must be absolutely exceptional and as a starting point alternatives to to I mean administrative detention must be thought such as for example placement in the community so I think resources is not really a good enough reason to to quote from the government I'm sure I missed some of the questions I don't know if Loana has noted and would like to address some some others thank you sure thank you Margarita so I noted a question about whether the working group would join an amicus curia and we have not done so many times if I'm not mistaken I think the first time was in 2020 where we joined with the working group on I cannot remember it was with another working group it was the working group on discrimination against women and girls so we haven't done so many times but it has happened and this concerns the detention of multiple women and we drafted that amicus curia to the government but again it's not something that we have done very very frequently in addition I noted a question about the follow-up information so again we I think we've mentioned this but the we try to gather information follow-up information from the source as well as the government so the source will come back to us generally giving us information about the follow-up procedure as Francisco mentioned in the opinion there is a request for follow-up procedures from the government and the source asking us to inform us about different measures that have been recommended by the working group and their implementation the follow-up will be or the these measures that are implemented will be shared in the annual reports of the working group um in there was a question about the receiving um no sorry stateless persons uh and uh so I think that one thing that we didn't mention that that may be necessary is that of course the working group doesn't work just with nationals or doesn't just decide on the detention of nationals of the country so any person that is detained by the government may be the subject of an opinion whether that person is a national of that country or not so we have many cases in which the person is not a national of the country but we still rule on the arbitrary nature of the detention I think that's all the questions I noted um forgive me if there's some missing but I think there was a question on the national human rights institutions uh yes and uh just to quickly uh to touch to touch on it uh in fact the working group has uh you know been collaborating with the national human rights institutions in many contexts most notably during the country visits of of the mandate but also all national human rights institutions are encouraged and can be in fact one of the sources of of the petitions so um I know that it was noted that the national human rights institutions are recording a large number of violations they they can absolutely be um initiating the regular communication procedure uh in before the working group also as as an official source and of course that would be kept confidential sorry Valerie I think you're muted thank you so much colleagues thanks to Luana Francisco and Margarita for those elements of response I think we tackled most of the questions which is great and thanks Liliana for also pointing out that of course when colleagues speak about migration this is for UNHCHR in the broader sense so this encompasses also refugees asylum seekers and of course the terminology is slightly different but we understand the work that the working group on arbitrary detention is tackling cases uh or of persons under UNHCHR mandate or in situation of displacement as well as statelessness um I see a few other um questions so I will put them back but colleagues if we have not uh fully answered your question or if you feel that you would like to know more or um share also an example or practice or further a question please you can also raise your hand and thanks to Mari who has been like the biggest champion today uh in uh asking questions indeed a very relevant topic but also Margarita Luana and Francisco if you could share with us whether the working group uh is issuing interim measures uh if this is part of your mandate and if there needs to be um kind of a repetitive pattern so there was a question if for example you intervene if it's multiple detain case of detention or you can intervene when it's the first case of a detention if you can clarify that aspect uh and if um of course we understood that you tackle individual cases but you can also act on some kind of patterns or um situations in a broader sense without referring to individual cases so those would be the questions well noted on the point Margarita you put forward that it's important to think broader as well um to connect with other special procedures or um committees you mentioned torture cut and others so it's just a reminder for all of us colleagues that one situation does not have necessarily one uh line or solution or interlocutor it's a complex environment the more synergies we have the the more comprehensively we can tackle the issue but let me go back to Margarita Luana and Francisco with those additional few questions and any final remarks and at the meantime colleagues if you would like to come with any example of further question or please put up your hand and I will come back to you before closing so over to you Margarita Luana and Francisco please. Well Alex do you want me to take this one? Yes sure. So I also wanted to take it because because I wanted to make a couple of comments in relation to the previous batch of questions there was a question about whether if the if the opinion is incompatible with the judicial ruling on national courts I know my colleagues address follow-up but but I would just want to say that um it is a general principle and a norm of international law that states cannot oppose national legislation or national system to not to comply with their international obligations um so so the the the sentence or the national ruling could perhaps be based on national law that is that national law is not compatible with international law but also the the sentence itself could be incompatible with the international obligations of the state um so that that we have seen cases in which judicial rulings for national courts challenges the authority of the working group or the legitimacy or being a validity of our opinions is not strange but it's part of the constant you know the effort that that that that we all do towards the release of individuals and we use the tools that we have at our disposal and then the the the other question was what if if the government cannot have the capacity to cooperate with the working group because let's say for example financial constraints and to to that I just wanted to add that you know having a person detained is more expensive that not having that person detained and when you have an overcrowded system it's even more and so we have seen for example that many issues of overcrowding can be released can be addressed looking at alternatives to the attention for not violent offenses often the detention places of detention are are full of people that are there for minor offenses waiting for trial and without being convicted so you know that's if the government really wants to cooperate looking into alternatives to detention is the best way to alleviate its capacity to cooperate further so so I wanted to add those those two things then to the question of interim measures and it's true that the working group has the capacity or the tool not only of adopting opinions but also sending what we call urgent actions or urgent appeals to government but because of the high amount of cases that we are dealing with it is very strange that the working group will deal with a case through both procedures it is true that the opinions take a little bit longer but not too much and also when we request information to the government at the start of the procedure to adopt an opinion the working group will normally include in that communication a request for the government to safeguard the life integrity and rights of the person that is under custody so even though we don't have a formal interim measure procedure we when we start the process for the adoption of an opinion we request the government this this protection element and also in very rare cases in extreme circumstances there is the possibility of sending in parallel an urgent action to the government on a case that it's being decided will be decided or and or has been decided and but we are very careful with that because the working group should not advance a conclusion about the the merits of the case when requesting measures to be adopted to to safeguard the the life and integrity of the individual and then there was a question about how many times a person needs to be detained for the working group to intervene or what happens when there have been multiple instances of detention you know it's very difficult to give a general answer to all cases because each case is different there are countries in which for example we see patterns of short-term detention it's not you know a person being convicted to 10 years detention but but it's a person that for example there was a demonstration that day and the person was detained that day to prevent he or she from attending that demonstration obviously the working group with them huge amount of cases that he has it cannot have the time it is impossible to deal with a short-term detention before it ends so the longer the detention is the more opportunities the working group will have to engage with the government and and to and to push for the case but also if we see patterns of individuals that are always being detained there's also the possibility for the working group to take to take those cases. Thank you so much Francisco this has been very useful and indeed I think you have responded to to the questions of colleagues and to beyond I don't see any hands up at this moment from participants Lona Margarita anything to add before we come to the close of our webinar? Not from my side I'd just like to thank again everyone for for attending and for your interest in our mandate and we really hope that you know the mechanisms that are available to the working group who could serve could be useful either to to you or to your partners on the ground in safeguarding the rights of individuals on the ground thank you Lona. I was just if I may going to add because I saw I think you mentioned something about what would happen if the person was released in the meantime before the person before the working group was able to take to adopt an opinion and so I just wanted to make that clarification that the the working group may carry on with adopting an opinion even if the person has been released and in fact it has happened that the person either has been released before we even send the communication to the government or after or in between so before after the communication is send it before the adoption of the opinion and in part that is true because beyond just asking for the release of the person we also would ask the government for reparations or compensation of the person and so nothing prevents the working group from making that determination even if the person was released and apart from that thank you very much as well thank you Valerie for organizing it and everyone for attending and giving us your attention thank you very much. Thank you so much Lona Margarita Francisco for your time and sharing your expertise and knowledge with us and also making the connection with colleagues who are online colleagues we would encourage you if you have any further questions or ideas or maybe you are thinking I have a case or a situation I'm not sure whether I should reach out to the working group if it's the right mechanism please don't hesitate also you can reach out to me Peter or we can put you in touch with the working group and definitely it's worth also to have this brainstorming and try to see how to more actively engage with the working group on arbitrary detention of course not to say that all you do on arbitrary detention or a detention more broadly will only be dealt with the working group you do a lot of other elements in terms of your protection monitoring in terms of your advocacy with the government revisions of legal frameworks you do a lot but the working group can actually support those efforts can complement them can support the key messages the efforts you are doing on the ground but also raise it to another level beyond what we can do at our level Margarita thank you Valerie I just like to echo your statement that in fact yes the working group can support your advocacy efforts in so far for example as exemplifying a specific pattern of a violation with a specific emblematic case so if you see in your operational context a specific pattern I think that would be might be interesting for you and for all the alleged victims to have a one or two opinions of the working group highlighting this pattern which then as my colleagues explained would be translated into the official UN report and that's documented officially so I think that would be also useful way for the working group to support support you on the ground not on the specific victim but also to support your advocacy and your work on the ground so thank you thank you so much so we are at the end of our session dear colleagues just to flag to you that we have two upcoming thematic webinars on 7th of April there will be a discussion around human rights education and then on 12th of April please mark it down on your agendas as a safety date which you will receive we will launch our good practice guide so examples collected from all regions on what has been the impact of engagement with human rights mechanisms be it special procedures treaty bodies UPR how it has resulted in positive impact and hopefully giving you also some further inspiration and ideas how to take it forward so two themes that are coming up but thank you again very much I see the reactions in the chat very much appreciated thanks to all colleagues also ask the questions and we will be in touch and have a good day over


Hello and welcome to this special discussion where we look at the working of India's petrochemicals industry. We look at why this sector has been dominated by just a few players. Why is this industry monopolistic in character? And we're going to also look at how this sector may change in the near future with the entry of a new player. I'm very happy to welcome Om Prakash Singh, an engineer by training, currently an advisor to the non-government organization called the Centre for Financial Accountability. Om P, thank you so much for giving us your time. Let's start our conversation by you giving us a broad overview of India's petrochemicals industry. Now we know petrochemicals or plastics or a range of plastic products like PVC, polyvinyl chloride, HDPE, high density polyethylene, LDPE, low density polyethylene. They are used widely for a wide range of products, soaps, detergents, explosive, rubber, spades, besides everything from bottles to containers and buckets. We have several small units, thousands of them downstream units, but a few players at the top were making the petrochemical products. How do you see the working of India's petrochemicals industry in the context of various commitments that have been made by the government of India to international organizations? Because manufacturing petrochemicals is highly carbon intensive, so I'd like you to talk a little bit about India's international commitments and where the petrochemicals industry fits into these commitments. Thank you for having me here. So like you said, petrochemicals industry in India is very monopolistic or oligopolistic in nature with couple of players at the top who make the feedstock for all the other midstream industries which convert that into products that we use every day. Now if you look at the industry, the pesticide and the fertilizer part is primarily owned by the government, PSUs. PSUs stand for public sector undertakings, but the petrochemical that goes into making materials like plastic which you gave examples of, they are primarily manufactured by the private sector and within that it is mainly reliance that is making most of the feedstock. In fact they have monopoly on LDP, the low density polyethylene. And you're talking here about reliance industry is limited, which is actually India's biggest privately owned corporate entity, I would say a conglomerate headed by one of India's richest men Mukesh Ambani, who's also one of the world's richest men. Please continue. And the Jamnagar Refinery Complex is one of the world's biggest refinery complex. They say it's the biggest. They do say it's the biggest. And so a lot of the policies are framed in a way that benefits the industry in both financial as well as regulatory terms, non-financial regulatory terms. So very recently we observed that there were duties that were imposed on certain chemicals that reliance makes which are feedstocks rather and their own industry. Those duties were removed by the government. I'm going to stop you here. I want you to talk and elaborate on these issues in greater detail. The duty structure on raw materials like PTA purified pterothalic acid or MEG monoethylene glycol. But can we first talk a little bit about what are India's commitments to the rest of the world and where India's petrochemicals industry. I mean, how it fits in or does not fit in into India's commitments. Yes, please. So India has committed to reduce its carbon intensity for the GDP by 45% by 2030. They have also said they will be net zero by 2070. To that effect, after the Paris Agreement, they have actually increased the taxes on petrol and diesel. Even though we all know petrol and diesel are inelastic commodities. So just by increasing the price, the consumption will not go down. Or not go down proportionately. Not go down proportionately. You are talking about petrol, diesel. Yes. Their tax is at more than 60% today. Whereas plastic and other petrochemicals, which will be affected by pricing, they are to some large extent price sensitive. And this is seen in multiple studies across the world, not only in India. That if the price goes up, then the consumption goes down. The taxes are only around 12% to 18%. And they are within the GST framework. While we know that the emissions, both in terms of CO2 as well as methane, from the petrochemical industries as bad as when crude oil or gas is used as a fuel. So petrochemical they are saying is essentially use of crude or natural gas to make materials. Whereas when we use them as fuel, that's where the government has focused. Government in fact is trying to reduce the import of crude oil by increasing the ethanol blending in our petrol vehicles. And main reason given is that we want to reduce our import dependence. We all know that we import about 85 to 87% of our crude oil. But at the same time, the government is promoting the petrochemical industry. They have set up something called the Petroleum Chemical and Petrochemical Investment Regents. Where up to 20% viability gap funding is being offered. Please explain what you mean by this. By themselves, the petrochemical industry may not be profitable. And therefore, large players are reluctant to invest in petrochemical by themselves. So government has to step in and create the enabling infrastructure by which it becomes viable for this industry to sort of have a positive return on investment. And so almost 20% in our study we have found is provided by the government as viability gap funding. And that's where the support or the subsidy in a way starts for this industry. The other is of course like I mentioned taxation. They only taxed at 12% to 18%. Whereas the kind of impact they have on climate or the environment is perhaps higher than when crude oil is used as fuel. Yet the government also says we are doing away with one time use plastic. I mean the government claims that it's doing its best or trying very hard to encourage people to give up plastics, use biodegradable and natural products. But do you see a certain hypocrisy in the position of the government? Absolutely. First of all, the definition that the government uses for single use plastic itself is flawed. They think that only when the single use plastic is used by the end user, which is primarily street vendors and small shop owners, that is called SUP or single use plastic. So the carry bags or the cutlery, balloons and all of these things they have put in the ban list straws. Straw is the only material that also gets used by large FMCG companies, the fast moving consumer goods industries. Otherwise if you see all their packaging in single use, whether they use multi-layered packaging for biscuits or chips or Amazon delivers their products in plastic bags. It doesn't matter if they are more than 120 micron, it is still single use plastic. If it comes to me, I will cut open the packet and I will throw it. Or they use thermocall for packaging refrigerators and other white goods. All of that is single use plastic. In fact, there is data to show that the items that are on the ban list constitute almost 2-3% of the overall plastic that is made. Whereas single use plastic is more than 50% in the country. So bulk of the single use plastic is exempted from the ban. Interestingly, what the government has also done through the EPR and the plastic based management tools. What do you mean by EPR? EPR is extended producer responsibility where the producer of that material is responsible for dealing with it after its usage as well to the end of life. Now if they implement EPR in letter and spirit, then for example Nestle would be responsible for the Maggie packet that gets discarded after the Maggie is consumed by the consumer. But there what the government has said. Or Amul. Or Amul would be responsible for the. Bag after the bag could be taken out of the bag. What happens to the bag after? Yes exactly. So all of these industries would be responsible for the packaging that because I as a consumer am not buying that plastic packaging. I am buying the milk or I am buying the Maggie noodles or I am buying the biscuits or chips. I am not buying the plastic. The industry is choosing to provide it to me in that plastic packaging because it benefits them. I actually as a consumer have health impacts because of the packaging that they use because the plastic that is used for packaging can have anywhere between 10,000 to 16,000 chemicals. Many of them are carcinogenic in nature. A lot of them have endocrine disrupting. I mean yes carcinogenic essentially means cancer causing. A lot of them disrupt the endocrine system in the body and I am consuming that. Some of these chemicals can also enter through the skin. I don't necessarily have to eat it. So all of that is actually harmful for me and therefore I as a consumer don't want that plastic. I want to produce what is inside the packaging. Correct. That is what I am purchasing. So the government claims is doing a lot but it's actually doing it. Doing the opposite. Is the opposite or little or nothing? No it's actually the opposite. So that's where I am coming to. When they came out with the extended producer responsibility rules under the plastic waste management rules amended 2018. And 2021 they said the EPR is to the extent that the industry or the company has to collect back that same package of plastic from the market. So Nestle has to buy back. It uses a certain amount of plastic. Single use plastic. Therefore it should buy back from the market. Equal amount of plastic. In the form of waste. That may not have the Nestle brand on it. So they can go ahead and buy any plastic and then they need to burn it in a waste energy plant or a cement kiln. Now burning it they are saying will be categorized as recycling. Nowhere in the world you burn fossil fuel. Plastic is essentially fossil fuel. You burn it and you say you have recycled it. So that's the first problem. The second is that once you burn it the energy that it generates is called renewable energy.  Why have they done that? Because by itself you cannot give subsidy to this industry. But once you categorize that as renewable energy you can subsidize them. So there is more than hypocrisy in what the government is doing. Absolutely. In fact as some of you have argued you are actually the small vendor. The small shopkeeper is being told you can't use single use plastic. But the big players, the big users, the fast-moving consumer goods companies, the Nestleys of the world, the Unilever, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, National Dairy Development Board, Amulet, etc. They are getting away relatively lightly. Yes. There is another dimension to the working of this industry. The feedstock as you pointed out. They are just a few companies in the business. Reliance Industries Limited in 2002 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister of India acquired the public sector company Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited. That's IPCL. After this acquisition Reliance Industries became a major, a monopolist in the production of a wide range. You talk about LDPE, low-density polyethylene, polyethylene itself, polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate, PET PET, which is used for making plastic bottles and containers, as well as PVC, polyvinyl chloride. The other player is of course one of India's biggest public sector companies, Indian Oil Corporation. And the others are really in the margins. Yes. I'm talking about Mitsubishi in Haldia, their affiliate. What we have seen for a long time now and there is a book by Hamish McDonald, the Australian journalist called The Polyester Prince. He's provided a detailed and a very compelling narrative of how government regulations and rules and customs duties pertaining to imports of raw materials that are essential for producing these plastic products, how they've been manipulated, changed to benefit Reliance Industries Limited. And even now when you see two widely used intermediates, MEG, that is Mono ethylene glycol and PTA, purified terephthalic acid. These products, the import of these products, the duty structure, the way anti-dumping duties are levied or not levied by the Department of Commerce, the DGTR, the Director, Red General of Trade Remedies, all seem to be biased in favour of these major players, notably Reliance Industries Limited and also Indian Oil Corporation. What are your comments? So, if we go back to the 1980s when Reliance was still in the government's business and the fibre business and not yet producing polymers and petrochemicals, they were in support of reducing these duties so that they can import this at a lower cost from outside and therefore start getting a foothold in the fabric business or the government's business through the Wimmel brand and some of the other brands. They were competing in Bombay Dying directly then and they were successful in influencing the government to reduce the duties so that they benefit from that business. Once they did the backward integration by setting up the Jamnagar Refinery and buying out IPCL, they then decided to reverse the duty structure and start imposing these duties back so that other players do not do what they have done and do not benefit from a similar... Effectively shutting out potential competitors. Entrepreneurs, innovation as we call it. So they have basically killed the innovation in the industry after having done it themselves. And that's really not what capitalism in true form should be. This is basically a classic example of crony capitalism where the industry influences the policy to benefit themselves and monopolize the business. And so we see that playing out in the 80s and then again in 2000s when they got the monopoly and then very recently the government decided to do away with some of these tariffs and Reliance started feeling the pinch because the yarn and the fiber as well as the government business which is basically 40,000 micro, small and medium enterprises, MSMEs. And then employing hundreds of thousands of people. The largest employer after agriculture in the country. They benefited from the removal of these duties. But then Reliance felt threatened because they thought they will lose the business in the near future and so they have gone after this duty and they have been able to get either through the government or through court orders these duties reinstated in the name of trying to protect the country and the interests of the country. But actually you're making the business of these 40,000 MSMEs very difficult. They're losing business. They're losing competitiveness. And therefore MSMEs have already struggled during demonetization through GST implementation through the lockdowns and these sort of practices will further make it difficult for them to survive. And I think this has been the policy of the government to monopolize each of these businesses. We were talking about street vendors. When I put certain restrictions on the plastic that they use but don't put restrictions on packaged food like Maggie what essentially I'm doing is I'm taking some business away from street vendors and giving it to these corporates and making them larger. And so this is playing out from MSMEs to Reliance. It is playing out from street vendors to Nestle, Unilever, Coca-Cola and Amul and it is happening in ways that we don't necessarily see directly. OP, you've just mentioned this in passing. There are at least 12,000 units that are making products using petrochemicals and these in turn outsource to other small, micro, small and medium enterprises and as we have just discussed literally hundreds and thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, lakhs of people, they depend on these. I mean they are employed with this in this sector. Now we've seen a running battle of late with these associations that represent these smaller and medium sized units and the big players saying look why are you protecting Reliance? We are importing as you pointed out almost 90% of our total requirements of crude oil. In the case of various kinds of plastic products and raw materials we are perhaps importing a smaller proportion but we are nevertheless importing it and by protecting the likes of Reliance Industries Limited and Indian Oil Corporation you are actually depriving these smaller units of a cheaper source of raw material to make all the products that they are making including textiles, blended fabrics besides all these plastic products whether it be buckets and bottles or a whole wide range of products but invariably these players too are fighting a losing battle most of the time. All their pleas to the government, to the department of commerce, to the DGTR that is the director general of trade remedies more often than not tend to fall on deaf ears. They even lose to the courts because of just the muscle power and the influence that Reliance has on the policy space and the regulation space. So I absolutely agree it's a losing battle and the monopoly is only going to get stronger and there is one paper by Viral Acharya who is a former deputy governor of RBI How these big five guys are causing the inflation that the country is seeing today. And Viral Acharya mind you is no left wing socialist. He is about as right as right they come. And this paper that you are talking about was made for the Brookings Institution in the US. That's the one. That's right.  Reliance, Airtel and Adani. Adani yes. Yeah these five conglomerates. They are contributing to inflation. Yes please continue. So this knowledge is now available with the government that these people are causing inflation but they're still supporting and increasing their size and their power and heft in the market and that's absolutely against the people of the country and it's if I may use the term it's anti-national what the government is doing but they still continue to do that. And as you say it's directly affecting the livelihood of their different estimates. One of them is 10 crore, 100 million. Some people say 150 million people they are directly impacted their livelihoods. As you said earlier the manufacture of textiles generates the largest numbers of jobs in India after agriculture. What do you think is now going to happen when the Adani group enters the picture? It's planning a major project in Mundra in Gujarat. I've had a detailed discussion with Swati Seshadri of the Centre for Financial Accountability on the subject and she's talked in some detail about the environmental consequences of this project and this is using the cheapest but also the dirtiest technology in converting coal to polyvinyl chloride and you're importing the coal. Mr Adani's conglomerate is importing the coal from mines that it own operates. It's coming to India to the port which he operates and then used in a plant which he owns. So you have these monopolies cutting across sectors. And it's going to be funded by public sector banks. SBI is going to be funded by a consortium of banks headed by the State Bank of India, correct? So it's ultimately using our money to create a duopoly. At best it will become a duopoly between the lands and Adani. And that of course that fight will be very interesting to see how it plays out and whether it benefits the people or it only continues to benefit the two of them is to be seen. But the PVC industry itself is like you said it's using the dirtiest straw material. Whether it's energy or material, coal is considered the dirtiest source and the output PVC is no good at all. It's one of the worst plastics that you can use. In many cities in Europe they've actually banned PVC for construction because when there is a fire most people don't die because of the fire. They die because of the toxic fumes that are in the immediate environment and PVC produces one of the most toxic fumes there is. And so they realize that during fires this can be a big hazard. So they are starting to ban PVC. Whereas in India we are promoting PVC not only in construction but also all the banners that we see around us they are made from PVC. What we call the flex banners and any election you will see the whole city gets splattered with these banners of political parties of all shades of... And they're all using plastic. They're all using plastic. That's right. My last question to you and we'll sort of conclude on the note on which we began. We are generating huge amounts of plastic waste. One estimate says that approximately 9.5 megatons of plastic waste are being generated every year. As the world's most populous country we are generating about... We are the fifth in the world in terms of generating the waste. And nearly half of this waste is ending up in landfills. It is polluting water bodies, rivers and definitely exacerbating the environment of this country. Now while you're talking about reducing emission intensity over the next seven years by 45% while you're talking about the whole idea of carbon neutrality in India in a net zero country, a goal by 2070 everything that the government is doing seems to be contrary to what it is claiming. So maybe you can conclude by telling us the viewers of this program and the government of India what needs to be done now. What needs to be done to stop this hypocrisy. I think the answers are fairly easy, not easy to implement but fairly easy to imagine. We as a country and our culture has been of reuse. I remember as a child we used to buy milk in containers that we could use again and again. We would buy a lot of other essentials in our cloth bags and so on from the neighborhood shop. So that does two things. One is it reduces the single use plastic and promotes reuse and better environment. And two it promotes the neighborhood businesses in a way that today is breaking that chain and we are moving towards big baskets or reliance stores and so on. So I think if the government pushes that single use plastic will be banned in true sense not in the limited sense that it has banned today and create systems, government will have to set up those systems of reuse in the market. Some of it will have to be at individual level, some of them will have to be at system level but if reuse is imposed on the country it will benefit the environment it will benefit the health of the people and it will bring back our traditional and cultural ways of living. Because when plastic entered it completely decimated those you know now in temples they are using plastic packaging which I cannot imagine in most larger temples don't allow it but smaller temples they don't have the understanding and so they have started allowing for these I mean most people don't even segregate their waste they don't segregate the waste but if we reduce single use plastic I think segregation as a problem itself will reduce as well of course because the waste is unsegregated it's mixed waste the government doesn't know what to do with it and then the whole machinery is fighting only at looking at what to do with the waste but if we stop generating that waste as we say close the tap or reduce it at source the problem will become much easier to solve at the tail end but this is not a problem that you solve at tail end for example when there was more sulphur in the tailpipe emissions we do not keep attacking the engine we also went and changed the refining process and said the sulphur in the petrol and diesel has to reduce the lead in the petrol and diesel has to reduce some amount of it you can do at the engine end but otherwise it has to be at the source the change has to happen at the source and so we have to reduce or remove those 16,000 chemicals that are added we have to reduce or remove the single use plastic from the market we have to promote reuse and we have to bring back our traditional systems of living our life has to go back to a more healthy a more environment conscious way of living well thank you OP I can only hope that the powers that be those who run this country the policy makers, the decision makers the big business conglomerates will listen to what people like you are saying and one can only hope that more and more people will become aware of the direction in which we are working and the utter hypocrisy of the government in claiming something to the public and claiming something to international organizations but doing just the opposite thank you once again OP for being with us and you've just heard and watched Om Prakash Singh advisor to the Center for Financial Accountability discussing the way the petrochemicals industry is working in India its monopolistic character how it's likely to change with the entry of the coal to polyvinyl project proposed by the Adani group and at the end of the day the utter double standards the utter hypocrisy of the government in claiming is doing something is doing a lot to protect the environment including controlling the use of single use plastic but in effect doing just the opposite thank you very much for being with us Namaskar