EVENTS

Date:	Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Time:	10:30 AM -- 12:00 PM
Location:	Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

March 2004
The U.N. Human Rights Commission: Can It Be Rescued?

The United Nations Human Rights Commission has commenced its annual meeting in Geneva. This event has long provoked charges of hypocrisy, affirming every conceivable human right while passing over in polite silence the depredations of many of the world's bloodiest and most repressive regimes.

Dictators once ruled the majority of UN member states, but today elected governments lead nearly two-thirds. Can the democracies work together to restore integrity to the UN Human Rights Commission, or will the long tradition of diplomatic back scratching continue to prevail? Can the commission be transformed into a source of hope for the oppressed and pride, or will it remain a stain on the reputation of the world body?  AEI scholars and UN observers gathered at a March 31 AEI panel discussion to analyze these issues.

Joshua Muravchik
AEI

The UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) is in the third week of its sixtieth session in Geneva. Since its founding, the United Nations has accomplished less than its founders had hoped insofar as it has proven incapable of enforcing world peace. Still, there persists the dream of the UN as a moral beacon, shining the light of inspiration or of shame. The epicenter of this hope has been the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UNHRC. But the UNHRC has likewise been something of a disappointment. Last year, the commission was chaired by Libya, a country not known for being especially punctilious in its respect for human rights. This year, however, Australia is chairing the UNHRC. Is it possible that the democracies on the UNHRC can work together to improve the commission?

Jeannie Henderson
Embassy of Australia

Ambassador Mark Smith, who is working assiduously to run a tight ship and maintain a degree of civility, leads the Australian delegation to the UNHRC. To this end, Ambassador Smith has not hesitated to pull delegations that fail to adhere to the established rules.

The first week of the UNHRC included the attendance of over one hundred dignitaries, many of whom commented on the impact of terrorism on human rights in the aftermath of the March 11 attacks in Madrid. A second highlight was a Swiss initiative that sought to focus attention on the problem of violence against women. The second week was devoted to a special sitting on the human rights situation following the assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin. There was a resolution condemning Israel for the assassination that was resolved thirty-one delegations in favor; eighteen abstentions; and two-the United States and Australia-opposed. Australia was one of many countries to deliver a statement that emphasized the imbalanced treatment of Israel at the UNHRC and the failure of the resolution to recognize the role of Hamas in terror.

As expected, discussions of the country situations under Item 9 were heated, as many developing countries dismissed critical statements by developed countries. China, for instance, linked the U.S. draft resolution on human rights abuses by Beijing to the U.S. elections; Cuba accused the United States of abuses in Guantanamo Bay; and Japan and North Korea had a heated exchange about the abduction of foreign nationals.

Some delegations have argued that Item 9 should be reformulated or even dropped, with country situations only discussed in the context of Item 19, which focuses on technical assistance. Australia strongly disagrees with this view and will push for the commission to seek further interaction with special rapporteurs.

The Australian delegation has also made several proposals about the reform of the UNHRC. Ambassador Smith has noted that, in its early days, the commission was devoted to drafting, adopting, and promulgating international human rights standards. More recently, the focus has shifted toward the monitoring and implementation of existing standards. To this end, Australia has been advocating-since 2001- reforms to the treaty body system. What the UNHRC does most comfortably is to debate and adopt resolutions, but these do not automatically have an impact outside Geneva. For this reason, Australia believes that the office of the high commissioner for human rights should have greater influence on the ground.

Australia also believes that good governance-strong civil institutions, court and justice systems, and accountability and transparency-are critical to the protection of both economic and political rights. Australia's recent multilateral intervention in the Solomon Islands has reinforced this view.

Likewise, Australia supports the development of strong national human rights institutions through technical programs. The UNHRC has its own mechanisms to monitor and report on human rights both in specific countries and thematically, but they cannot hope to substitute for effective and independent national human rights organizations.

Lorne W. Craner
U.S. Department of State

The question has been posed whether the UNHRC can be rescued. The Bush administration went through this debate the year that the United States was expelled from the Commission. There were some who argued that the UNHRC had descended so far that it was not worth rejoining; others noted, however, its importance as the only multilateral body charged with protecting human rights. Regardless, the challenge of reclaiming the UNHRC should not be underestimated. In this regard, the commission has been likened to a family-run restaurant that has fallen into disrepair and become a "biker bar."

Many necessary reforms need to be undertaken. For instance, there are too many rapporteurs, and they are of varying quality. Additionally, the UNHRC needs to do more than merely pass resolutions; the capabilities of the commissioner's office need to be enhanced. There also needs to be an improvement in the membership of the commission, which has been badly damaged by the inclusion of countries like China, Iran, and Cuba. The UNHRC need not be composed only of democracies, but countries with problematic human rights records currently occupy approximately 40 percent of the membership.

The United States is offering a number of resolutions this year, including ones on China and Belarus. Washington strongly supports the Cuba resolution put forward by Latin American countries, as well as the Turkmenistan and North Korea resolutions presented by European nations. The United States is also concerned about the victimization of Israel at the UNHRC. North Korea, which has the worst human rights record in the world, did not receive its own resolution until last year, whereas Israel been the subject of four to eight resolutions for many years.

Alison Kelly
Embassy of Ireland

The first and greatest achievement of the UNHRC was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Much like the real world, the UNHRC has evolved in the six decades since then. As originally conceived, it fulfilled an academic function, discussing human rights in abstract legal terms. Only gradually did it acquire a mandate to consider human rights situations in individual countries. In 1947, UN membership was a fraction of its present number. As colonies acquired independence, they brought with them their political concerns, cultural outlooks, and national priorities. The 1990s witnessed the end of the Soviet Union and the return of democracy to Europe, and with it, a period during which Western democracies wielded comparatively greater influence at the UNHRC than their absolute numbers warranted. Since then, a number of developing nations have questioned the UNHRC's emphasis on country situations and on civil and political rights. The EU does not share these views but recognizes that it is important to work around them.

There are now more democracies around the world than at any time in the past, and the EU is proud of the core values on which it is founded. The EU member states have long been convinced that the promotion of universal human rights is essential to preventing conflict around the world. Progress at the UNHRC requires effective cooperation among its members, but this has been frustrated in recent years by the inclusion of persistent human rights violators. In part, however, it is also due to a failure to convince moderate states-many of them practicing democracies-to lend their support on critical issues.

At times, there is an air of unreality to the deliberations of the UNHRC, which discusses the rawest of human rights violations in the cocoon of a Geneva conference hall. The formal output is a mountain of resolutions in language that is often opaque and repetitive, yet there can be no doubt that the country resolutions are perceived as strong statements of international criticism.

Tensions between the northern and southern hemispheres naturally affect the UNHRC. Developing countries tend to perceive the Western world as assuming the role of global moral policeman while the Western countries emphasize that the standards and values they project are universal. Closing this divide will require careful attention.

Ultimately, the proponents of the reform of the UNHRC must take a pragmatic approach, asking what will actually help those people whose human rights are being violated. In some cases, constructive engagement may make sense; in others, clear and public criticism may be the only option. It is thus not a question of selectivity in standards, but selectivity in choosing the approach best suited to ensuring their implementation.

The balance between civil/political rights and economic/social rights is another delicate topic. There is a widespread feeling that the developed world gives disproportionate emphasis to the former at the expense of the latter. However, while it is statistically true that a greater proportion of text and time is allocated to political and civil rights, it is important to recognize that economic and social rights are addressed in a range of UN forums, whereas political and civil rights are not.

Lastly, NGOs are a vital presence at the UNHRC. They provide a reality check and, often, a conscience to the deliberations. The development of an NGO sector in many countries is extremely positive; the first line of defense for human rights is at the local or national level.

Tom Malinowski
Human Rights Watch

The UNHRC is and always has been in a bad state, except for a brief period of hope during the mid-1990s. Nonetheless, it is charged with an extremely important mission. Naming and shaming human rights violators is the foundation of human rights work, whether by NGOs or governments. The UNHRC matters to dissidents who are given strength and inspiration to know that the world is on their side, and it matters to dictators who typically care a great deal about their reputation. These criticisms are especially acute because they come not from a specific country or group, but from a collective world body. The UNHRC has, on occasion, fulfilled this purpose despite its weaknesses, speaking out on East Timor, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Kosovo, and Chechnya. It set the parameters for an acceptable resolution of a human rights crisis in Burma. Even resolutions that do not pass-such as the ones on China-still can provide important leverage. Furthermore, if the UNHRC really did not matter, human rights abusers like Libya would not try so hard to get on it. That is the simple answer to those who believe the United States should abandon the UNHRC: this is an organization that matters to the bad guys, so by definition, it is important not to let them get it.

The real challenge is to make the UNHRC work better while still recognizing that it will never be perfect. The question of membership is inherently problematic: it is impossible to limit participation to "nice" countries. One rule that could be adopted, however, is that membership should be limited to countries that cooperate with the UNHRC's own instruments, allowing UN human rights rapporteurs to visit their territory. In the meantime, better diplomacy is needed to convince regional groups to elect more responsible members.

Membership is not the only problem, however. Approximately 60 percent of the UNHRC countries are democracies. If those countries voted according to their principles, the UNHRC would work extremely well. But this does not happen. The real difficulty, therefore, is getting the democracies to work together effectively, which, in the case of the Western group, they simply do not.

EU diplomats blame the Americans for everything that goes wrong at the UNHRC, and vice-versa. There remains a great deal of mutually assured cynicism, and with good reason. The Europeans have tended to stay on the sidelines on tough cases like China, preferring to take the contracts while the United States takes the heat; indeed, some European countries have become increasingly blasé about the entire notion of naming and shaming countries. The United States also deserves a share of the blame, however. Ham-handed diplomacy on Washington's part has alienated allies needlessly, with the United States refusing to compromise on trivial language about economic/social rights. Some of the actions that the Bush administration has taken in the global war on terror are likewise problematic. Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge recently praised Singapore's internal security acts, which are used not just to lock up terrorists but also political dissidents; ironically, the State Department regularly criticizes Singapore for these very same acts. These contradictions contribute to the sense of cynicism directed toward U.S. efforts at the UNHRC.

Realistically, it is impossible to separate the politics of the UNHRC from the politics of the transatlantic relationship. The commission thus provides a valuable reminder as to why it is important for countries that share democratic values to work together. As the UNHRC starkly illustrates, when the democracies of the world fail to unite, the bad guys win.

AEI research associate Vance Serchuk prepared this summary.