First regional conference on governance: human rights, economic development and socio cultural improvement

First conference on governance linking democracy, human rights and devolution process lasted two days between 26th and 27th 2009 of February in Marrakech.

Confronting and exchanging on different trajectories of Maghreb countries has been the guideline of this conference hosted and organized by the Amadeus Institute a few days after the 20th anniversary of the Marrakech treaty and the creation of The Arab Maghreb Union (signed on the 17th February 1989 between Algeria, Libya, Mauritania Morocco and Tunisia).

Brahim Fassi Fihri, Chairman of the Amadeus Institute, described the situation regarding human rights in Morocco in his inaugural speech, underlining the “dramatic improvement in the human rights situation over the last ten years”. “Some decisive steps were undertaken” said Mr. Fassi Fihri, referring to the creation of national commission on humanitarian international right, the equity and reconciliation commission and the commission in charge of framing the national strategy on human rights and democracy among other important moves.

"Justice has also improved due to national reforms of the prison system, the penal procedure code, the harmonization process between national legislation and international standards, the criminalization of torture and cooperation with independent UN experts." Albeit presenting firstly the bright side of Moroccan reforms, Mr Fassi Fihri also stressed what Morocco still had to achieve in the coming years. "Needed improvements are numerous […] and although Morocco could be presented as a pioneering country on human rights improvements by Arab standards, we are not pretending to be a model for our brother countries. The purpose of this meeting is to share experience and difficulties to solidify those improvements."

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