Israel Matzav

The Goldstone Report is far from over

Anne Bayefsky reports that the results of the pernicious Goldstone Report are far from finished.

As of today, the U.N. system expects the Goldstone Report to be implemented as is. Four different follow-up activities are still percolating. These requirements emanate from a Human Rights Council resolution on the report that was adopted just a few weeks ago on March 25. Goldstone published his confession only after the Council once again pushed forward the implementation of his report – timing he would have known well in advance.

First, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights is required to “submit a progress report on the implementation of the [Goldstone report]…to the Human Rights Council at its 18th session of September 2011.” High Commissioner Navi Pillay will no doubt do everything in her power to keep it alive, since she was a main figure in sponsoring the report in the first place.

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Second, the Secretary-General is required “to present a comprehensive report on the progress made in the implementation of the recommendations of the [Goldstone Report]…by all concerned parties, including United Nations bodies… to the Council at its 18th session of September 2011.” This mandate means the U.N. secretariat is required to ask large numbers of U.N. bodies for a report on what they in turn have done to implement the Goldstone Report, thus further spreading the report’s tentacles across the U.N. system.

Third, the Human Rights Council has “decide[d] to follow up on the implementation of the [Goldstone Report] …at its 19th session of March 2012.” So the Goldstone Report will come back to the Council next year.

Fourth, the Human Rights Council has asked the General Assembly to become more involved in promoting the report; it “urges the Assembly to submit that [Goldstone] report to the Security Council for its consideration and appropriate action, including consideration of referral of the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court…”

What could go wrong?

By the way, the picture at the top of this post is from the site GoldstoneReport.org, a site written by many bloggers (including yours truly) that dissected the Goldstone Report paragraph by paragraph, and which continues to be updated with all the latest developments.

Check it out.

Labels: Goldstone Report, Richard Goldstone, Understanding the Goldstone Report

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:42 AM