EU urged to stand up for UN human rights council

Human rights groups have urged the EU to prevent a new United Nations body in charge of tackling human rights abuses from failing.

The groups met human rights experts from EU member states last week and warned that countries such as China and Pakistan were forming a coalition within the UN Human Rights Council to render it ineffective.

"The EU is the most important entity by far as the US didn’t even stand for elections and is not a player…this is a major test for the EU," said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division.

Eight EU states sit on the 47-seat council and by working together they could build a coalition of states willing to see the body work, said Adams. "There is a working majority if real political muscle can be put into it and the EU can lead from the front," he said.

Adams added that the body needed to send experts to investigate abuses in Myanmar and the Philippines and to call a special session to highlight renewed violence in Sri Lanka.

"The Chinese and Pakistan are against the council working effectively and they have got a programme to stop it working effectively. The EU is the logical entity to counter this and can use great economic and political leverage to press for changes," he said.

The council began work in June last year, taking over from the UN Human Rights Commission, which was disbanded following criticism for giving high-profile positions to states which carried out abuses themselves.

An EU diplomat said that the Union’s member states on the council co-ordinated their work and voted together, taking their cue from the entire 27-member bloc. The diplomat added that the EU’s aim was to get strong tools for the council to give it teeth, to enable it to sanction experts to enter countries to investigate abuses and pass resolutions to highlight violations. "Some countries would like to get rid of these tools…if at the end of June we don’t have them in place the future of the council will be bleak," the diplomat added.

A ministerial meeting of the council where these procedures will be discussed will take place next week (12-15 March) in Geneva.

Human rights groups have urged the EU to prevent a new United Nations body in charge of tackling human rights abuses from failing.