Issue 157: Latest from the UN Human Rights Council

Debating Darfur

• Battle to Block New Report: On Monday an assessment mission created by the Council in December released a report finding “large-scale international crimes” in Darfur. Sudan and the powerful Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) immediately rejected the report—which was authored by Nobel Laureate Jody Williams and four others—and they are fighting hard to prevent it from being officially adopted.  The outcome of this struggle—which hinges on whether the Council’s non-OIC African, Asian and Latin American members will side with Sudan and the OIC or with the West—will be a make or break moment for the Council’s credibility. The Council will decide how to handle the report within the next two weeks.

• UN Watch addressed the full plentary of the Council this afternoon: “If the Council cannot endorse the recommendations of this report, it will cast a shadow upon the reputation of the UN as a whole…” Read our UN speech.  We commend the Council’s European democracies, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Ghana,  Nigeria, Senegal, Zambia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay for their statements at today’s session in support of the Williams team’s report.
  

Singling Out Israel

• Special Agenda Item Returning: The committee preparing the Council’s new agenda is proposing to reinstitute the special agenda item to condemn Israel.  Four possible formulations are presented, each of which would single out Israel alone out of 192 states for scrutiny under its own permanent agenda item.  This was the mark of shame of the discredited Commission on Human Rights, and proponents of last year’s creation of the Council—whose principles are “universality, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity”—had promised that the reform would have it removed.

• More One-Sided Resolutions: The Council’s Arab Group and OIC members introduced three resolutions criticizing Israel.  The Council will discuss these drafts over the next two weeks and members will vote on them by Friday, March 30.  In its nine months of existence, the Council has adopted 8 resolutions condemning Israel for human rights violations-and none against any other country.  The three additional  resolutions would:

  • entrench a 1993 mandate on Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories that would place the Jewish state under permanent investigation; presume the Jewish state to be guilty of “violations of the principles and bases of international law”; and ignore abuses against Palestinians committed by the Palestinian Authority;

  • criticize Israel for failing to cooperate with two investigatory missions into its recent military actions that began by prejudging its guilt; and

  • condemn “Israeli violations of religious and cultural rights” in regard to archaeological excavations, even though international investigators already debunked Islamic claims of a conspiracy to harm its holy shrine.

• Condemnatory Speeches: At the Council’s two and a half day “High Level Segment,” in which government ministers and other dignitaries addressed the body, many speakers urged the Council to maintain its focus on Israeli violations:

  • The Secretary-General of the OIC stressed that “the deteriorating human rights situation in Palestine must be addressed;” the Vice Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia that “this Council must consider the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory;” and the Foreign Minister of Malaysia  that “concrete steps must be taken to address the gross and systematic violations of the rights of the Palestinians.” As it happens, the Council has spoken of little else, with three special sessions and eight resolutions targeted against Israel alone in the past nine months.

  • The Foreign Minister of Iran urged the Council to “continue to be seized with” the “gross and systematic violations of human rights” of the Palestinians by Israel “till the end of occupation.”  How this squares with his view, also frequently advanced by other repressive regimes, that the Council should “discard a confrontational approach [of] targeting countries” is unclear.

  • The Foreign Minister of Cuba asserted that “[a]s long as the Palestinian people is prevented from its right to establish its own State and the Israeli occupiers continue to engage in the serious harassment of the civilian population in the occupied territories, this Council will not be able to do without the relevant issue on its agenda, or without the work of the Rapporteur following this situation.”  He was referring to proposals that the Council’s agenda include a special item dedicated solely to examining Israel, and that the mandate of the Council’s investigator into the human rights situation in Palestine, who can consider only actions by Israel, be made permanent.
    

Speaking out on World’s Worst Abuses

• No Resolutions:  A number of democracies tried to draw attention—in speeches but regrettably not in resolutions—to many serious human rights problems around the world that the Council has not yet addressed, including those in Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea.  The abuser countries responded with baseless accusations against the democracies that dared to mention them. Cuba, for example, accused Sweden of “carry[ing] out ethnic cleansing that only allows those whose skin and hair color fit with the racial patterns of former Viking conquerors to remain in the country.”  Iran called France’s statement mentioning it a “manifestation of Islamophobia.”

• Zimbabwe:  Democracies condemned the Zimbabwean government’s recent arrests and brutal beatings of opposition party leaders and members for attempting to assemble peacefully. Zimbabwe reacted by accusing these governments of being “colonial slave-masters” seeking to take over the country.
  

Establishing the Council’s Mechanisms and Procedures

• The new Council is still working on establishing its mechanisms, agenda, and rules of procedure.  These topics are being discussed at this session, but decisions will not be made until the Council’s next session in mid-June.  Some proposals under consideration pose threats to the Council’s future credibility and effectiveness, including the following:

  • Universal Review: The Council is supposed to create a system of universal periodic review to examine the human rights records of all countries equally, but Islamic and developing countries are demanding that the review vary based on each country’s “level of development” and “cultural and religious specificities.”

  • Eliminating Experts: The Council is supposed to maintain and improve the existing system of independent human rights experts that investigate and report on human rights issues generally or in specific countries.  But repressive regimes are seeking more member state control over the selection and conduct of these experts.  These regimes also are trying to eliminate all the experts that address, and often criticize, individual countries—except for the one investigating Israel.