Can Annan rescue the UN’s champion for human rights?

By David Cronin

Date: 14/04/05

When the annual session of the main United Nations body dedicated to improving human rights concludes next Friday (22 April), the EU will have obtained little from it.

By the start of this week, the only country-specific resolutions which the EU had proposed at the UN Human Rights Commission were about North Korea, Myanmar and (jointly with the US) Belarus.

On Monday (11 April), the Union put forward a motion deploring the ongoing bloodshed and destruction in Sudan's Darfur region.

But the EU's critics believe that this may have been submitted too late to wage an effective advocacy campaign in its support.

In general, there has been a marked reluctance on the part of the Union's member states to take initiatives that risk being rebuffed by a majority of the Commission's 53 countries.

The UN body's membership currently includes governments with tarnished human rights records, such as China, Russia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Congo and Pakistan.

Unlike the UN Security Council, the Human Rights Commission has no permanent members. The 53 countries are chosen by the UN's Economic and Social Council; each term lasts for three years but can be renewed.

Fifteen seats are allocated to Africa, 12 to Asia, 11 to Latin America and the Caribbean, five to Eastern Europe and ten to Western Europe and the remainder of the world.

Some of the severest criticisms of the Human Rights Commission were levelled at it when Libya was given the task

By the start of this week, the only country-specific resolutions which the EU had proposed at the UN Human Rights Commission were about North Korea, Myanmar and (jointly with the US) Belarus.

On Monday (11 April), the Union put forward a motion deploring the ongoing bloodshed and destruction in Sudan's Darfur region.

But the EU's critics believe that this may have been submitted too late to wage an effective advocacy campaign in its support.

In general, there has been a marked reluctance on the part of the Union's member states to take initiatives that risk being rebuffed by a majority of the Commission's 53 countries.

The UN body's membership currently includes governments with tarnished human rights records, such as China, Russia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Congo and Pakistan.

Unlike the UN Security Council, the Human Rights Commission has no permanent members. The 53 countries are chosen by the UN's Economic and Social Council; each term lasts for three years but can be renewed.

Fifteen seats are allocated to Africa, 12 to Asia, 11 to Latin America and the Caribbean, five to Eastern Europe and ten to Western Europe and the remainder of the world.

Some of the severest criticisms of the Human Rights Commission were levelled at it when Libya was given the task of chairing it in 2003, after being nominated by a group of African states.

Human rights advocates queried why a government which prohibited opposition political parties, an independent press and had been accused of torturing dissidents at home and assassinating Libyan exiles abroad was elevated to this position.

By nominating Libya, campaign groups argued, African leaders were breaching the terms of the New African Partnership for Development (Nepad).

As well as being committed to the eradication of poverty, this accord also undertakes to promote high standards of human rights protection.

Ahead of this year's session, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European commissioner for external relations, urged the Union to raise criticisms formally, even if most other participants in the six-week session would reject them.

"The likelihood of defeat does not, in itself, constitute an overriding reason to refrain from running a resolution," she said in February. "As human rights defenders constantly attest, the very act of tabling a draft resolution sends a clear signal to the government and people of the country concerned."

The Union's reluctance to take initiatives that appear doomed has been shaped by last year's experience, when EU-sponsored motions on Chechnya and Zimbabwe fell.

Although the UN has described Darfur as the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet for some time, the EU has attempted to put the onus on the African Union to address it. It was only after it deemed the response from the African Union unsatisfactory, that the EU submitted its resolution this week.

Following the killing of Chechnya's rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov in March, it was suggested that the EU might push for Russia's repression in the breakaway republic to be held up to scrutiny in Geneva.

But a spokeswoman for the European Commission said last week that it believed the appropriate channel for addressing Chechnya was through a recently established forum for human rights dialogue between the Union and Moscow.

Campaign groups have reacted with dismay to the perceived reticence of the international community to speak out on Chechnya.

Last month Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that Russia was taking no decisive action to bring to justice members of its security forces that committed abuses.

HRW estimates that since 1999 up to 5,000 civilians - or combatants unarmed at the time of arrest - have disappeared after being taken into custody.

While the Russian law enforcement authorities have opened 1,800 criminal inquiries into the 'disappearances', no prosecutions have ensued.

HRW spokeswoman Joanna Weschler describes the EU's contribution to the UN session as "terribly disappointing".

"Even if a resolution goes down the drain, governments need to show their true colours," she said. "The value of a resolution that is not a sure winner is that you are not just sweeping a problem under the rug. If you start out low, defeats become a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Human rights activists questioned whether the UN commission was anything more than a toothless talking shop.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general acknowledged recently that the Human Rights Commission's credibility had dwindled.

As part of his package of proposed UN reforms, he recommended that it should be upgraded to a council of human rights, whose members showed a solid attachment to high standards of protecting basic freedoms.

This would sit all year round, rather than just for six weeks as is now the case.

All of the UN's 191 countries would undergo a periodical review of their human rights records, with the council mandated to raise alerts on areas where urgent action is required.

Beatrice Quadrandi from the International Federation on Human Rights says there is "now a historic opportunity to have a stronger UN body".

But she does not believe that the likelihood of reforms justify the EU's allegedly weak performance at the 2005 session. "I have the impression that the Europeans don't dare any more to present country resolutions," she adds. "They are wondering what kind of a commission there will be next year. But they cannot wait until reform takes place to act."

Article on the United Nations' 53 member Human Rights Commission and the reforms proposed by UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.

• Primary Source

UNHCR: Bodies: Human Rights Commission http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/

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