Information You Can Use: A Bi-monthly Service for the UN and Civil Society
Volume 2, Issue 1, January - February 2005
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Statement
U.N.: Good Diagnosis, but Poor Prescription
More Needed to Restore Legitimacy of Commission on Human Rights
Geneva, December 2, 2004
A report on the future of the United Nations, ordered last year by Secretary-General
Kofi Annan and officially released today, accurately diagnoses the sorry state
of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights but proposes an inadequate cure, Human
Rights Watch said today.
Among its key findings, the report highlights that the Commission
suffers a serious problem of credibility that casts doubts on the overall
reputation of the United Nations. The report, entitled “A More Secure
World: Our Shared Responsibility” and prepared by an panel of eminent
persons, notes that the Commission’s most serious problem is that so
many of its 53 member states are themselves responsible for serious human
rights violations.
“The report is on target in recognizing that gross human rights violators
seek seats on the Commission to protect themselves from criticism,” said
Joanna Weschler, U.N. advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. “But
instead of establishing membership criteria linked to a state’s human
rights record, the panel members give up the battle and recommend expanding
the Commission to include all 191 U.N. members.”
This recommendation is inconsistent with the report’s own analysis. In
a section on the General Assembly, the only U.N. body with universal membership
so far, the report states that the Assembly has lost its focus and recommends
that it establish “smaller, more tightly focused committees.”
The General Assembly has hardly been a reliable defender of human rights.
Just days ago, it voted not to take any action on or even discuss several
resolutions against highly abusive states: Sudan, whose ethnic cleansing is
responsible for ongoing crimes against humanity in its western region of Darfur,
as well as Zimbabwe, and Belarus. Even the Commission with its current membership
had succeeded in criticizing Belarus earlier this year.
“There’s little that a 191-member body could accomplish during a
six-week session. At best, it would be yet another talk shop,” Weschler
said.
Human Rights Watch has argued that governments wishing to serve on the Commission
should fulfill membership criteria and make specific rights commitments prior
to their election. In addition, the Commission on Human Rights should become
a standing body, capable of acting upon crises as they occur rather than waiting
for the six-week annual session. In its report, the Panel recommends the creation
in the unspecified future of a Human Rights Council, which presumably would
be permanent.
Among many other issues covered by the report, Human Rights Watch welcomed
the prominent place that the report gives to the recommendation that the Security
Council should stand ready to use its authority to refer cases to the International
Criminal Court.
Also of great value are recommendations made regarding the responsibility
of the United Nations to protect civilians from atrocities and mass killings
committed by their governments. Human Rights Watch supports the five criteria
of legitimacy laid out in the Panel’s report, but criticized the lack
of reference to international humanitarian law as the indispensable guiding
principle of any military action. Significantly, the report calls on the permanent
members of the Security Council to “refrain from the use of the veto
in cases of genocide and large scale human rights abuses” – a recommendation
that Human Rights Watch strongly supports.
Human Rights Watch endorsed the report’s proposed definition of terrorism.
The report found that the right to resist foreign occupation does not imply
a right to target civilians and noncombatants.
“Nothing justifies deliberately attacking civilians,” Weschler said.
Human Rights Watch also welcomed the report’s recommendations addressing
the due process concerns related to the listing of individuals and entities
identified as supporters of al-Qaeda as well as lists created by some other
Security Council sanctions regimes.
“We have been concerned for years about the lack of due process behind
the listing and delisting of individuals and entities targeted for sanctions,”
Weschler said. “The Panel was right to press for this problem finally
to be addressed.”