Issue 143: The UN’s New Human Rights Council: Cause For Cheer?

The General Assembly last week chose 47 nations as the founding members of the UN’s Human Rights Council, the much-ballyhooed replacement for the discredited and now-defunct Human Rights Commission. Is this, at last, real reform — or simply a face-lift for a credibility-sagging UN?

For now the jury is out. The nascent body won’t convene until June 19th, and substantive deliberations won’t begin in earnest until September. But the early returns are bearish. While the May 9th election did have its bright spots — the hatemongering Iranian government’s candidacy suffered a resounding defeat — close to half of the countries named to the world’s foremost human rights panel fail themselves to meet accepted democratic standards. Worse, more than half of the members have decidedly negative UN voting records on key human rights resolutions. Those who imagined the Council would mark a visible break from the past are beginning to taste the bitter pill of disappointment.

Geneva Will Never Forgive Annan
In his March 2005 blueprint for reform entitled “In Larger Freedom,” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan signed the death warrant for the old Human Rights Commission the moment he exposed its countries who “sought membership of the Commission not to strengthen human rights but to protect themselves against criticism or to criticize others.” In a UN world ruled by illusions of legitimacy and delicate diplomatic language, these words hit like dynamite. The resulting “credibility deficit,” continued the Secretary-General, “casts a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole.” Ouch.

That something was just possibly amiss with a rights panel that last year officially classified Sudan’s atrocities in Darfur as a matter of “Technical Cooperation,” — and whose members included representatives of Fidel Castro, Robert Mugabe and Kim Jong-Il, along with chairmen like Libya’s Muammar Qadaffi, whose appointee presided in 2003 (and this, recall, during the desert dictator’s pre-Born Again days) — was plain to any man, woman or child with the barest common sense.

And yet, before the Secretary-General’s declaration, no UN official had ever admitted it. To this day, the chancelleries of official Geneva, from mandarins to apparatchiks, will never forgive Kofi for saying their Emperor had no clothes. How dare he!

New Council: 47% Non-Democratic States
With the elections over, we return to Annan’s original diagnosis of the problem:  Is the composition of the new Council any better, and does it remove the shadow on the UN as a whole?

Make no mistake: there were some positive developments. Sudan, Syria and several other notorious violators refrained from even submitting their candidacies. Though some of these might have been able to muster enough support — witness the Saudis’ Wahabbist regime winning 126 out of 191 votes, far more than the supposedly rigorous 96-vote threshold — they likely declined to run for fear of unwanted publicity.

But while Council boosters love to emphasize the gangsters that are off (for most, simply because they chose not to run), the real question is who is on .  And of these, no less than 47 per cent fail to merit the category of a Free country as evaluated by Freedom House in its most recent worldwide survey of political rights and civil liberties. On the bright side, it constitutes an 8 per cent improvement over the 2006 Commission’s figure of 55 per cent. But even if they’re a few less in number, it is once again the foxes guarding the henhouse — hardly cause for cheer.

Four of the Council members are actually listed among Freedom House’s “Worst of the Worst” regimes.   These four — China, who will now be among those defining international human rights on freedom of religion; Cuba, on the rights of journalists; Russia, on freedom of association; Saudi Arabia, on women’s rights — also are among five countries that UN Watch identified, before the May 9 election, as particular threats to the Council’s legitimacy (see statement and charts).

In terms of press freedom — a key indicator of a country’s respect for individual liberty and the rule of law — only 15 of the new members (32%) ranked in the top third of the latest worldwide press freedom index published by Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières ). A larger proportion — 18 of the 47 members, or 38% — ranked, disappointingly, in the bottom third of the press freedom index. Free speech and a free press are the lifeblood of democracy and human rights. That the majority of Council members bear little respect for this value is troubling, to say the least.

Credibility Deficit: Majority Fails the “Darfur Test”
The fact is that the new Council’s membership continues to be plagued by the credibility deficit that, as described by Annan, plagued its predecessor.

Credible candidates should evidence not only a commitment to human rights domestically, but also to protecting human rights through their actions at the UN. Disturbingly, a majority of the new Council — 24 countries, being just over half the members — voted last year to take “No Action” on the genocide in Darfur, Sudan, when it came to a vote at the General Assembly. This group includes Free countries like Ghana, India, Indonesia, Mali, Senegal, and South Africa who, despite their membership in the Community of Democracies, have tended to vote according to regional or developing world alliances rather than on their democratic values. The new standards of the Council require members to put human rights before UN politics. Whether it’s regarding Darfur or other atrocities, now’s the time for all members to pledge to vote to protect the human rights victims — and not the perpetrators.

Looking Ahead: Priorities for the Inaugural Session
The Council’s inaugural session opens in Geneva on June 19. After the ceremonies, members will sit down to determine the body’s agenda and working methods, including rules for participation of NGOs. Importantly, they will give shape to an entirely new system requiring each country to submit its human rights records for universal periodic review. Some would have this become another toothless mechanism for “cooperative dialogue.” What’s needed, rather, is a mechanism that will, in a fair manner, apply real scrutiny, to hold governments to account and cite them for violations and abuses.

The former Commission, wrote Secretary-General Annan, was plagued by politicization and selectivity. Abusers were — in the words of Canadian parliamentarian Professor Irwin Cotler — granted exculpatory immunity, while only a handful of countries were censored. The most notorious example was the Commission’s gross bias against Israel, which dominated the sessions at the expense of countless other pressing situations. The annual campaign led by Arab and Islamic states, encouraged or tolerated by others, singled out Israel for a unique measure of discriminatory treatment. Israel alone in the world was subjected to a special agenda item. Israel alone was targeted by no less than half of all country-specific resolutions.  Israel alone was barred from any of the Commission’s regional groups.

To be sure, Israel must be held accountable for its record like every other state. But if the inaugural session reverts to the old practices of hounding Israel with a battery of one-sided condemnations, the Council will turn itself into a mockery. With agenda issues likely to rise at the opening in June, this will be one of its first tests.

Similarly, the new Human Rights Council will not be worthy of its name if it tolerates the segregation of one country — Israel — from membership in any of its regional groups, a vital element for participation. Two weeks ago, Secretary-General Annan called publicly for an end to this long-standing anomaly. Specifically, Mr. Annan called on the Western European and Others Group, which already includes Israel in New York, to admit Israel in Geneva and elsewhere. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour ought to assume the responsibility now in Geneva for ensuring that the Western Group on Human Rights admits Israel in time for the June opening. The equality principles of the UN Charter and the resolution creating the Human Rights Council require no less.

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Charts Assessing New Council Members

Methodology of Endorsements

PDF Version

Members from the African Group (13 seats)

Members from the Asian Group (13 seats)

Members from the Eastern European Group (6 seats)

Members from South and Central America (GRULAC) (8 seats)

Members from Western European & Others Group (WEOG) (7 seats)

Methodology of Endorsements