Washington, Feb. 24, 2006-Anne Bayefsky,
senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Danielle Pletka, vice
president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI, and Brett
Schaefer, Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at
the Heritage Foundation, today issued the following statement on
yesterday's release of the text of a resolution establishing a new
Human Rights Council by U.N. General Assembly President Jan
Eliasson, intended to replace the discredited U.N. Commission on
Human Rights:
Yesterday's resolution on the proposed United Nations Human Rights
Council is a bitter disappointment to friends of democracy and
allies in the international protection of human rights. The United
States would do the legacy of Eleanor Roosevelt, the first Chair of
that commission, as well as countless oppressed and abused people
around the world, an enormous disservice by agreeing to this
proposal.
The United Nations' record on promoting basic human rights has come
under well deserved criticism in recent years. Members of the
Commission on Human Rights (CHR), the U.N.'s primary human rights
body, include some of the world's worst human rights violators,
such as China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
Even Secretary-General Kofi Annan has acknowledged, "The
commission's declining credibility has cast a shadow on the
reputation of the United Nations system."
The embarrassment of an ineffective CHR led the United States and
other countries to call for the abolition of the Commission and its
replacement with a new Human Rights Council. Over months of
negotiation, these efforts to create a credible human rights body
have been strongly opposed by human rights abusers in the U.N. Such
states have sought to perpetuate their hold on the CHR in order to
block scrutiny of their policies.
The text demonstrates that the abusers have succeeded in thwarting
the goal of democratic societies to build an international human
rights institution worthy of a leadership role in the 21st
century.
U.S. support for this proposal is especially unwarranted because
the name change from Commission to Council will erroneously suggest
renewed credibility in a body which has failed to undergo
fundamental change.
Among the many disappointing aspects of the Feb. 23
resolution:
- There are no criteria for membership on the Council. The
proposal merely suggests a state's human rights record be "taken
into account" "when electing members." Even states under Security
Council sanction would not automatically be excluded. While there
is a provision for suspending a Council member that commits gross
and systematic violations of human rights, the step can be taken
only with the agreement of two-thirds of the members of the General
Assembly. Not even 50 percent of the General Assembly could agree
that Sudan was guilty of human rights violations in November
2005.
- All member states are eligible for Council membership. While
there is a periodic review requirement, there is no guarantee that
even those countries found complicit in massive and sustained human
rights abuses would be censured. The review is not tied to a
mandatory outcome and takes place only after the elections.
- Instead of a much smaller body designed to attract the best
citizens of each regional group, the proposal includes only a
minimal reduction from 53 members to 47.
- The proposal significantly shifts the balance of power away
from the Western regional group. The African and Asian groups will
hold 55 percent of the votes. The proportional representation of
the Asian group will see the greatest increase and the Western
group, the greatest decline.
- States that are elected must rotate off every two terms. The
United States, which had been a member of the Commission since 1947
with one exception and has played a leadership role in efforts to
promote human rights throughout its history, as well as
contributing 22 percent of its costs, would be ineligible for
Council membership every six years.
- Special sessions of the Commission can be called by only
one-third of the Council's membership. Hailed as an improved
capacity to deal with urgent human rights situations, the
composition of the new Council will make it more likely that
special sessions will be about the United States and Israel than
about China or Sudan.
- The Council is given a mandate to follow up goals and
commitments "emanating from U.N. conferences and summits," many of
which have been specifically rejected by the United States.
- A last-minute addition in response to the Organization of the
Islamic Conference and the Danish cartoons affair places the
emphasis on roles and responsibilities rather than explicitly
endorsing freedom of speech.
The Eliasson proposal will not create a credible U.N. human rights
body. On the contrary, it will give rise to a new agency just as
likely to operate against the interests of the United States and
fellow democracies as the prior Commission. The difficulties in
negotiating a credible international human rights body, in an
institution which gives serial human rights abusers a veto over the
result, are a systemic U.N. problem. But that does not justify
democracies capitulating to the pressure to make newness an end in
itself.
We urge the United States to resist the inevitable clamor to
approve this proposal without a complete overhaul. It is far better
to say no than to reinvigorate a discredited Commission under
another name.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Anne Bayefsky, Hudson Institute, 917-488-1558; Danielle Pletka,
American Enterprise Institute, 202-862-5800; Brett Schaefer, The
Heritage Foundation, 202-608-6097.