The need for criteria on technical cooperation

UN Watch Statement for Agenda Item 10
Technical assistance and capacity-building
25th Session, UNHRC
27 March 2014

Delivered by Sophie Spiers

Thank you, Madame President.
UN Watch welcomes the reports that we have heard under today’s agenda item, technical assistance and capacity building.
An important question is whether governments that have had, or are still having, serious human rights problems are capable of making effective use of external assistance, except for the most technical of purposes.
Similarly, it is fair to ask which country human rights situations are most efficiently defined and addressed under a framework that describes itself in merely technical terms.
It could be helpful for the Council to develop an objective set of criteria for deciding which countries should be addressed as technical problems, and which should be treated as situations to be critically monitored and examined.
We propose that the human rights situation in a country should not be treated as a technical matter in cases where:

• The country’s leader is indicted for genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
• A country that systematically persecutes ethnic or religious minorities.
• A country that indiscriminately shells civilians.
• A country that prevents aid groups from delivering food and other assistance to displaced people.
• A country where women and girls are victims of sexual violence from government soldiers.

Madame President,
Clarifying the terms of technical cooperation, can only lead to the strengthening of “the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms,” one of the founding principles of this Council.
Thank you.