UN Reform
Will the new Human Rights Council really take off?
Ahmed Sayeed
The new Human Rights Council is now ready to start its formal functioning as the 191UN member states have elected the first 47 members of the council. However, looking at the list of the members of the council, many have a valid reason to be doubtful on the effective functioning of the council. It is uncertain that the member states of the UN had cast their votes based on the specificity of the pledges or the domestic human rights record of the candidates as stipulated in the General Assembly Resolution A/RES/60/251, that urged-- when electing members of the Human rights Council, member states shall take into account (1) the contribution of candidates to the promotion and protection of human rights and (2) their voluntary pledges and commitments made thereto. For example, among the Asian candidates Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia and China rank as the bottom four in regard to the specific commitments they have made in their pledges, but in terms of bagging votes they were among the top eight out of the thirteen elected candidates.
The aim of the General Assembly Resolution was to set some criteria for the election of the members of the new Council to differentiate it from the discredited Commission on Human Rights (CHR). But how much improvement has really taken place in this regard? Though the new membership standards and election procedures discouraged states with some of the worst records of human rights abuses from even running for election, including recent commission members Sudan, Zimbabwe, Libya, Syria, Nepal, Egypt as well as USA, Burma, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Belarus and Ivory Coast, a handful of political powerful violators have been elected like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia.
The disappointing election of certain violators shows that candidates were not elected solely on their voluntary pledges and rights record. Even though the real test of whether the Council will really be a better alternative to the Commission remains to be seen. This will depend on the Council's performance, especially we have to look at how far the Council is able to translate into practice its mandate and functions as stipulated in the General Assembly Resolution.
It was expected in the General Assembly Resolution that, members elected to the Council shall (1) uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights; (2) fully cooperate with the Council and (3) be reviewed under the universal periodic review mechanism during their term. Now let us look at the future, as expressed by Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch-- “ The new Council has better tools and a better membership than the old commission. It is now up to the members to live up to the Council's potential in their actions and votes to curb rights violations and strengthen protection of victims.”
Now we shall have to keep an eye to the very first session of the Council to be held on 19 June 2006.
The author is a human rights activist, working as the Coordinator, Media & Communication Unit, Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK).
