UN Human Rights Reform a farce
The UN voted a few hours ago by 170 to 4 to set up a new Human Rights Council to replace the the Human Rights Commission, “which in recent years has included some of the world’s most abysmal rights violators.”
The new Human Rights Council was proposed to be break from the old Commission which is the words of Kofi Annan “casts a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole.”
Sadly this is in fact a cruel hoax where they have done little more than rename the old Council. Let’s look at what Kofi Annan originally proposed:
Member States should agree to replace the Commission on Human Rights with a smaller standing Human Rights Council.
It has shrunk by 10% only from 53 members to 47 members. This is ridiculously large and guarantees that it will continue to have as members some of the worst infringers of human rights. 25 should be the maximum if not even lower.
Its members would be elected directly by the General Assembly by a two-thirds majority of members present and voting.
This would have made it easier to keep the North Koreas of the world off the Council. But this was unacceptable to the member states who watered it down to merely a simple majority.
They have also kept geographical quotas. It has to consist of 13 Member States from Africa, 13 from Asia, 6 from Eastern Europe, 8 from Latin America and the Caribbean and 7 from Western Europe and Others.
Now it is almost undeniable that western european countries (which includes us) have the best human rights records in the world. Dozens of surveys show this. Yet they are restricted to 7/47 seats.
Then it gets even worse. They have term limits of two consecutive terms. This again greatly increases the probability that flagrant human rights abusers will be elected to the Council. For example after six years one will have had 26 African countries as members or becoming members and if someone can find 26 African countries with a great human rights record I’ll be impressed.
There are some minor bright spots such as every country will be subjected to a universal periodic review of their human rights.
But overall the UN has not only backed away from all the substantive parts of the reform proposal, but its compromise has quite possible made it even worse that the previous Human Rights Commission.
It will be very interesting to see which countries get elected. China has welcomed the creation of the Council so that gives us a fair idea!
March 16th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
Yes I agree. Trouble is you have to have something in the world concerning Human Rights.
Maybe the theory is that putting countries that are less tolerant on their citizens will make them see the error of their ways. All in all another gravy train, but thats life.
March 16th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Putting lipstick on a pig, what the UN does.
March 16th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
It’s not an ideal set-up but I can’t see how you can say it could result in something worse than before. Some changes have been made all for the better. Even though the US were pushing for greater reform Bolton has said they will work constructively with the new system. The UN is riddled with paradoxes so one shouldn’t expect the US-Annan lead reforms to happen over night.
March 16th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
How I wish Kofi Annan were parachuted into the middle of Dafur and left there until he came to the realisation .. “DUH” ..that the UN has been a monstrous irrelevancy and total waste of space,time,money and source of hope for the very people who needed it most. The UN itself is as corrupt as the various institutions that it occasionally handwrings, tut tuts and peeps on about.JEEZ,I can do that myself with roughly equal results and cost a lot less.
March 16th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
I agree with you about the size and distribution issues David, although I suspect that the almost unworkable diversity of these bodies goes a long way to avoiding them churning out absolutely unworkable policies. That’s rather the nature of the beast, you have to take baby-steps towards managed otherwise you’ll end up face down in the shit (I would suggest that Iraq is a salient example here).
I am very pleased that they decided upon the periodic review members activities rather than mandating members with a commitment to human rights. I think measuring members against a notion of systematic human rights abuses is more practically positive than checking whether they’ve made strong statements in favour of human rights.
March 16th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Oh, and Mara, I would love to see you manage the work of agencies like WHO, UNHCR and UNICEF. Yeah, the UN needs a shit load of reform, but it is also doing a whole bunch of good in ways that abrasive, self-righteous, Western Imperialists (and yes I hate the term and use it term advisedly and with some reservations) like yourself.
March 16th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
When the UN stops writing reports that damn countries like ours and stops sending people who come from some of the worst violators to lecture us and starts to appoint countries with the best HR records then it might just might gain some credibility.But whilst it insists on appointing countries with the worst records it will continue to wonder why its treated as a laughing stock.
March 16th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Still I have no doubt that this socialist nation will be amongst the first to embrace any silly resolution they pronounce, and that Liabour ministers will use such resolutions to avoid accountablity and responsibility just as they always do.
March 16th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
Ms Marple,I am pondering your opinion that I am abrasive,self-righteous and a Western Imperialist.Oh silly me,I thought I was concerned about people being tortured and starved to death in situations that I consider to be avoidable,and where I see the UN and its hangers-on to be self absorbed,corrupt and therefore utterly ineffective
March 16th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Oh boy I bet the Dear leader would love to be the (chairperson?) of this bunch of losers. This surly would be her dream job but I quess she hasn’t finished screwing this country yet.
March 16th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
For those of us who think the UN is a corrupt, castrated waste of time, this is a great result. We get to keep one of our best examples of why the UN should be consigned to history’s dustbin.
March 16th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
Ms Marple…I’m orf to bed now with my hotty knowing that all is well with the world and that the UN is looking after us all..Oh,my teddy is calling.Night night.
March 16th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
I’m all for consigning the UN to the dustbin as soon as something better is invented. And no, I don’t think the US ruling the world is better. Nor do I think massive international conflict to sort out issues is a good alternative either. We’ve already tried it, and the UN seemed like a pretty good idea after that.