Israel Matzav

Crying over human rights

Writing in Monday's New York Times, former Czech President Vaclav Havel decries the 'elections' that are due to take place for places on the UN 'Human Rights Council' later this week, because once again countries with poor human rights records are going to be elected in uncontested elections.

Only 20 countries are running for 18 open seats. The seats are divided among the world’s five geographic regions and three of the five regions have presented the same number of candidates as there are seats, thus ensuring there is no opportunity to choose the best proponents of human rights each region has to offer.

Governments seem to have forgotten the commitment made only three short years ago to create an organization able to protect victims and confront human rights abuses wherever they occur.

An essential precondition was better membership. The council’s precursor, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, was folded in 2006 mainly because it had, for too long, allowed gross violators of human rights like Sudan and Zimbabwe to block action on their own abuses.

The council was supposed to be different. For the first time, countries agreed to take human rights records into account when voting for the council’s members, and those member-states that failed to, in the words of the founding resolution, “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights” would find themselves up for review and their seats endangered. For victims of human rights abuses and advocates for human rights worldwide, the reforms offered the hope of a credible and effective body.

Now, it seems, principle has given way to expediency. Governments have resumed trading votes for membership in various other United Nations bodies, putting political considerations ahead of human rights. The absence of competition suggests that states that care about human rights simply don’t care enough. Latin America, a region of flourishing democracies, has allowed Cuba to bid to renew its membership. Asian countries have unconditionally endorsed the five candidates running for their region’s five seats — among them, China and Saudi Arabia.

With all due respect to Havel, who is one of the few honest men in a den of thieves when it comes to human rights, I must disagree with his conclusion that states that care about human rights 'don't care enough.'

The 'Human Rights Council' is set up in a way that ensures that the likes of Libya and Iran will continue to dominate the Council. The 'regional' set-up ensures that a majority of the Council will always consist of countries from the Organization of Islamic States and the Non-Aligned Nations, most of whom have dismal human rights records. It also ensures that Israel, which is the Council's main topic of conversation, will never be represented on it.

All of this was predicted when the 'Human Rights Council' was formed three years ago. Many free countries realize that there is no point to the 'Human Rights Council,' which is dominated by the likes of Iran, Libya and Cuba, and they don't lend their prestige to it by participating in it.

Sadly, the idea of 'one country, one vote,' which permeates UN institutions, ensures that in many matters the not-free world outvotes the free world. We'd be better off with a Human Rights Council (no scare quotes) that consists of countries that respect human rights rather than having a more inclusive 'Human Rights Council' under the UN's auspices.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:04 AM