The UN's anti-rights lobby The world body's Commission for Human Rights
is currently dominated by governments that are trying to
sweep their own human rights abuses under the carpet
"the US has over the past few years
contributed to the general erosion of the UN human rights monitoring
system.It adamantly opposed several important and promising new
human rights initiatives, notably the International Criminal Court and a
new anti-torture mechanism.
On the anti-torture protocol, the US sought to derail the creation of a
universal system of visits to places of detention, under an optional
protocol to the Convention Against Torture. Here America found itself
allied with some strange bedfellows that it normally rebukes as chronic
human rights violators -- Cuba, China, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Zimbabwe."
taipeitimes.com
By Joanna Weschler
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary
Robinson was replaced yesterday by the Brazilian Sergio
Vieira de Mello, a longtime UN diplomat. The transition is
going to be a tricky one, because the governments that dominate the UN
Commission for Human Rights (CHR) are increasingly trying to protect
themselves -- and their allies -- from any scrutiny or criticism.
During the last annual session of the CHR, held in Geneva last spring,
the body voted one by one to ignore severe human rights violations in
such places as Russia/Chechnya, Zimbabwe, Iran and Equatorial Guinea.
For several other violators -- such as China, Algeria, Uzbekistan, Vietnam
and Saudi Arabia -- the commission couldn't even muster the will to put
their abuses on its agenda. It also cut back on several country-specific
monitoring mechanisms, compromising one of the most powerful of
human rights tools, that of naming and shaming.
This is happening, in part, because countries with vile human rights
records -- Algeria, Burundi, China, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of
Congo, Indonesia, Kenya, Libya, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria,
and Vietnam -- command a powerful bloc within the CHR. They compose
a near majority on the 53-member body. In 2003, Zimbabwe will join
them and, unless African countries reverse an earlier decision, Libya will
chair this body for a year.
Such countries go out of their way to secure seats on the commission and
then actively work to build alliances with pliable governments. In
addition, they have developed a number of clever procedural ploys to
undermine the commission.
Their resolve to render the commission toothless is not matched by a
balancing impulse on the part of the traditional promoters of human
rights in the West. To some extent, this is because -- all rhetoric
notwithstanding -- human rights rank relatively low among these
governments' priorities. Trade often trumps human rights and
governments, especially in Europe, are often loath to jeopardize lucrative
contacts when govern-ments that violate human rights retaliate at being
criticized.
These tendencies have been compounded more recently by the war
against terrorism. Western democracies are unwilling to irritate important
allies in the counter-terrorism struggle simply because they might be
violating the rights of their own citizens.
During the past year, for the first time in its history, the US was not a
member of the commission (though it will be regaining its seat in 2003).
You might think that America's absence contributed to the CHR's sorry
state as, in the past, the US was often principled and outspoken on some
issues, in particular regarding certain specific abusive countries. But you
would be wrong.
Increasingly obsessed at the prospect of its own citizens and practices
coming under international scrutiny, the US has over the past few years
contributed to the general erosion of the UN human rights monitoring
system. It adamantly opposed several important and promising new
human rights initiatives, notably the International Criminal Court and a
new anti-torture mechanism.
On the anti-torture protocol, the US sought to derail the creation of a
universal system of visits to places of detention, under an optional
protocol to the Convention Against Torture. Here America found itself
allied with some strange bedfellows that it normally rebukes as chronic
human rights violators -- Cuba, China, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
Yet, without US support, the initiative was overwhelmingly endorsed in
late July by the UN's Economic and Social Council.
Of course, not everything in the UN's human rights picture is uniformly
bleak.
The International Criminal Court will be beginning its work soon, and
with greater international support than expected, thanks to America's
efforts to undermine it. The universal system of visits to places of
detention is gaining ground. Even at the CHR, there has been some
recent progress, for example, on work to establish "disappearances" as an
international crime.
Here, countries with fresh memories of repressive rule, such as Latin
American and East European nations, have increasingly taken the lead in
promoting human rights initiatives and defending the principles. (Latin
America, in particular, played a pivotal role in all the situations described
above.)
All the same, manipulation by powerful countries and the foes of human
rights have left the commission in bad shape.
Vieira de Mello -- who has had a distinguished career in the UN system
and is a brilliant diplomat -- must be willing and able to draw on his own
region and on others to make sure that the UN human rights system
serves the victims rather than the violators. But he will also need to entice
the West into becoming more pro-active and the US in particular into
re-establishing its role as a constructive rather than destructive force in
human rights affairs.
Joanna Weschler, a onetime activist in Poland's "Solidarity" movement,
represents the Human Rights Watch at the UN.
Copyright: Project Syndicate |
