US thinks UN will delay new rights body for months

Evelyn Leopold 
March 1, 2006
Reuters
Original Source: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N01210334.htm

UNITED NATIONS, March 1 (Reuters) - U.N. members may delay consideration of a crucial Human Rights Council for several months rather than reopen negotiations on the text the United States has rejected, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said on Wednesday. 
At the same time, Britain broke ranks with several European nations by saying the U.N. General Assembly should not approve a resolution on the new council without U.S. consent. 
Bolton on Monday announced Washington's opposition to a draft resolution on the Human Rights Council. Republican members of the U.S. Congress want to make the formation of the council one of the conditions for paying the full U.S. dues to the United Nations. 
He proposed new talks among governments, which supporters of the draft text say would not improve the resolution but open up line-by-line negotiations to all countries. Cuba, for example, has already submitted its own amendments. 
On Wednesday, Bolton told reporters his discussions with other nations showed most preferred to put off a vote for several months rather than have new talks. 
I read the predominant view to be to defer consideration for several months, Bolton said. The predominant sentiment I think today is against reopening negotiations and leaning more toward putting the whole thing off. 
European Union nations, most of whom were willing to accept the draft resolution drawn up by General Assembly President Jan Eliasson after months of haggling, were unable to take a unified position after the U.S. rejection, diplomats said. 
The European Union wants to see the Human Rights Council put in place as soon as possible, said Britain's ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry. We would like to see that text adopted as a basis of consensus among the (U.N.) membership. 
DILEMMA 
But he said Europeans also recognized that adopting that text without United States support isn't good for human rights and it's not particularly good for the council. 
And that is the dilemma the president of the General Assembly has, and we will give him whatever help we can as he decides now how to go forward, Jones Parry said. 
The new rights council is to replace the discredited Geneva-based Human Rights Commission, where rights violators have protected condemnation of other nations' abuses. 
Eliasson, who had hoped for a vote this week, gave few clues about what he would do next. 
I have stated several times that I can see grave difficulties with renegotiation, and I can see grave difficulties with changing the text, Eliasson said. 
And therefore I would hope that we would come to closure on this before the Human Rights Commission begins. The commission is to start its annual six-week session March 13. 
Bolton has said he wants to make it more difficult for rights violators to gain a seat on the council, such as a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly rather than an absolute majority of 191 members as in the current draft resolution. 
It's an anomaly that it now takes a majority to get on the council under this draft but two-thirds to get kicked off, Bolton said. 
Diplomats said the United States had also expressed last-minute concerns that Asian and African nations would form a majority in the new council of 47 members. 
The proposed text would distribute seats among regions: 13 for Africa, 13 for Asia, 6 for Eastern Europe, 8 for Latin America and the Caribbean and 7 for a block of mainly Western countries, including the United States and Canada.