Charter for Rights Panel Faulted
Advocates Criticize U.S. Call to Reopen Talks on U.N. Draft

By Colum Lynch
February 24, 2006
The Washington Post
Original Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/23/AR2006022301995.html

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 23 -- John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called for reopening negotiations on a new human rights council, a move that senior U.N. officials and some human rights advocates warned could jeopardize the creation of a new agency to sanction rights violators.
Bolton said a draft charter made public Thursday by the president of the U.N. General Assembly, Jan Eliasson, did not include U.S. amendments designed to exclude rights abusers from the council, including a requirement that, to join the council, states must obtain support from two-thirds of the assembly's 191 members.
This draft certainly does not live up to the expectations set by the secretary general when he launched the process, Bolton told reporters after the release of the draft. And I don't think anybody claims that, and in fact, the strongest argument in favor of this draft is that it's not as bad as it could be.
Bolton did not rule out the possibility that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might still endorse the new rights council, saying the United States will decide after further review what position to take on this. He said that one option at this moment is to open up real international negotiations.
His remarks placed him at odds with Secretary General Kofi Annan and the leaders of human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, who urged member nations to support the proposal. They expressed the fear that reopening the negotiations just weeks before the current Human Rights Commission is scheduled to meet in Geneva would prompt countries to oppose the new council. The draft circulated yesterday would make next month's meeting of the commission its last.
Obviously the proposal isn't everything I asked for in my report, but I think it's a credible basis for moving ahead, said Annan, who called in December 2004 for a new human rights group. I don't think anyone can claim this is old wine in a new bottle. He added in a statement: Now is the time for the membership to support the president's compromise text and adopt a resolution in the coming days.
The new council would replace the 53-member Human Rights Commission, which has granted membership to nations whose governments have abysmal rights records. Commission members have been selected by a system of regional rotation that makes no distinction between rights advocates and abusers.
Among the key issues of contention is how member states would be chosen for the new council.
The administration believes requiring a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly would prevent rights abusers from being selected.
The draft resolution issued Thursday, however, calls for a new council with 47 members elected on the basis of geographical distribution and by a simple majority vote of the assembly. Members could be suspended by a vote of two-thirds of the assembly and would have to commit to uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said what the current draft has is significantly better than the existing human rights panel and is worth supporting. Roth and other activists said the new draft includes several improvements, including increasing the number of meetings and subjecting member nations' rights records to scrutiny.
This draft is far from perfect, Roth said. As for Bolton's proposal of more negotiations, I think it ignores the death-by-a-thousand-cuts tactics of the human rights abusers. There is no reason to believe that more negotiations would yield a better text and much reason to believe the opposite.