U.N. commission will never succeed without reform 

By Richard S. Williamson
February 16, 2006
Chicago Sun-Times
Original Source: http://www.suntimes.com/output/otherviews/cst-edt-ref16.html

Last year was supposed to be the year of reform at the United Nations. Secretary-General Kofi Annan outlined a broad menu of proposals. The oil-for-food scandal revealed gross U.N. mismanagement. Nonetheless, the member states were unable to act. 
In September, the largest gathering of world leaders in history met at the U.N. They were unable to approve reform proposals and merely agreed to a package of general principles. 
Entrenched narrow interests, recalcitrance and ineffective diplomacy all contributed to this failure. A Peacekeeping Commission has been agreed to, but otherwise nothing. And a deadline to reform the U.N.'s machinery on human rights is fast approaching. 
If the member states are unable to agree to reforms this month, the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission will meet this spring. Undoubtedly, it again will fail in its responsibilities. 
As Mark Malloch Brown, chief of staff to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, has said, For the great global public, the performance or non-performance of the Human Rights Commission has become the litmus test for U.N. renewal. 
Establishing important norms on human rights has been an area of United Nations achievement. The U.N. Universal Declaration on Human Rights adopted in 1948 and subsequent U.N. human rights agreements have become standards around the world agreed to by all in name, if not always in practice. The United Nations provides a forum for us to stand up for the fundamental values that have defined American Exceptionalism and are the right of all mankind, not just the lucky few. 
It is in America's interest to promote human rights. Nations that respect the rights of their own citizens are less likely to disrespect the rights of other countries and engage in military adventurism. Countries that share our values are our natural friends and allies. 
Furthermore, it is America's responsibility and its opportunity to advance those rights which our forefathers fought to secure, from which so many of our blessings flow, in which we live in freedom. 
The United Nations should be an instrument through which human rights norms are advanced and individual rights are protected. Unfortunately, it is not. 
In 2004 I served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva and saw firsthand the ways in which it is dysfunctional. I listened to countries defend Fidel Castro's Cuba, where political dissent means incarceration. I heard delegations defending the atrocities of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, where there is no free press and property is seized arbitrarily for political gain. Even North Korea's Kim Jong Il was defended by some. 
With 54 members, the commission has proven too large to work effectively. Chronic human rights abusers such as Cuba, Zimbabwe and Sudan are allowed to serve on the commission. In 2002, Libya chaired the commission. As Peggy Hicks of Human Rights Watch has said, allowing human rights abusers on the panel has been debilitating. They are there to protect themselves from criticism, not advance human rights. 
It is important to name and shame human rights abusers. But in recent years, there has been a growing predisposition among many countries to resist resolutions condemning specific states for their human rights abuses. In 2004 while I served in Geneva, the commission even failed to condemn the ethnic cleansing going on in Sudan. 
In pushing to transform the commission into a new Human Rights Council, the United States and Europe are seeking to shrink its size, change the membership selection process, affirm the body's responsibility to condemn human rights abusers, and have the council exist year-round so it can act when rights violations are discovered. These are all straightforward, commonsense reforms. 
Nonetheless, there is strong resistance led by Belarus, Cuba, China, Egypt, Russia and Vietnam. 
Human rights are fundamental and they are transcendent. Countries are being tested. The time for action is now. If U.N. members cannot act on human rights, what can they do? 
Richard S. Williamson is a Chicago lawyer and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.