UN talks on new UN rights body given one last week

By Irwin Arieff
March 10, 2006
ABC News
Original Source: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1710738

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - General Assembly President Jan Eliasson gave U.N. members on Friday one last week to work out a deal for a new U.N. human rights body that is opposed by the United States but backed by human rights groups and the vast majority of U.N. members. 

Eliasson again dismissed rewriting the plan, as Washington has insisted, stating it would mean opening up a Pandora's box to renegotiate the delicately balanced text he had drafted last month in hopes of winning quick consensus approval of the new U.N. Human Rights Council. 

Eliasson had hoped for assembly approval before the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission opens its next session in Geneva on Monday. 
Shortly after he spoke, the commission steering committee decided to call for a vote on Monday to suspend the session's work for a week to accommodate Eliasson's timetable. 
But U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said Washington would not bend and was still working to amend the text. 

If you want to fix the text, fix the text. My instructions are clear, he told reporters. 
Bolton announced in late February that Eliasson's blueprint for the new rights council had manifold deficiencies and Washington had instructed him to reopen negotiations in hopes of revising the text. 

Alternatively, the United States wanted the assembly to postpone a decision for several months, he said. 

Washington wants strong barriers to membership on the new council by rights-abusing nations, which have come to dominate the Human Rights Commission. 

But Eliasson said he hoped Washington would settle for verbal assurances from member-states that they would vote to keep rights abusers off the council rather than amendments to the text. 

The European Union had already offered such assurances and many others would be willing to do so, he said. The last thing I would want to do is to see the United States put in isolation on an issue like this. 

While Bolton has vowed to call for a vote if the plan is brought up in the assembly, Eliasson reiterated his view that it was crucial to have consensus approval of the text. 
If a vote were called, many countries would come forward with weakening amendments and the new council would end up gutted before it was even born, he warned. 

Eliasson said the week's delay he had requested would be the last one. I think we will need to move one way or the other next week, he said. We have to come to closure.