Where the Rights Commission Went Wrong

By Marcela Sanchez
March 23, 2006
The Washington Post
Original Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032301071.html

Heraldo Munoz remembers a time when the U.N. Human Rights Commission saved lives in the Americas. The former dissident and now Chile's ambassador to the United Nations witnessed how the commission spoke truth to Augusto Pinochet's power in the 1970s and '80s, its actions infuriating the dictator and even at times staying his repressive hand.
Yet it was the same commission that so failed 75 Cuban dissidents three years ago. Governments, human rights organizations and news media throughout the world condemned Fidel Castro's crackdown on his critics and called for their immediate release. But the U.N. human rights body managed only to issue the most generic resolution -- with no single mention of the arrests.
The same commission that authored the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and helped bring preservation of human freedoms to the international forefront had devolved into something else altogether: a politicized forum for trading favors. And so last week, the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to disband the commission and replace it with a new body, the U.N. Human Rights Council.
The failings of the commission came to reflect a flagging commitment to the defense of human rights in general and in the Americas in particular. Membership on the commission became a mere commodity and commissioners used their positions to undermine and deflect criticism of the countries they represented. The commission itself became a place where ideological battles were waged for short-term gain.
It was like a Persian market, recalled Enrique Berruga, Mexico's ambassador to the U.N. Every year, as seats on the commission became available, regional countries would wheel and deal with total disregard for the higher purpose of the U.N. body. A spot on the whaling commission would be traded for one on human rights as if countries were swapping a bag of peanuts for a Rolls-Royce, said Berruga.
Cuba made sure it landed the Rolls-Royce of a seat on the commission (even after its 2003 crackdown) as did other blatant violators of human rights such as China, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Once in session those members were concerned only with protecting themselves, leaving the defense of victims to others.
For the Americas, the Cold War lived on at the commission long after it had ended. The United States, ever obsessed with Cuba, and Cuba, ever confronting Washington's imperialist hegemony, often engaged in an unconstructive exercise of mutual humiliation. Both managed mostly to undermine the very cooperation necessary for the commission's work, so that it became a sort of gladiator's arena where human rights was the ultimate victim, said Munoz.
Other regional representatives often found themselves uncomfortably in the middle -- but that didn't mean that they necessarily assumed the high ground. If spiting Washington played well at home, a U.S.-sponsored resolution could well be spurned. As one Latin American official confessed to me, internal political calculations often weighed more than human rights considerations in determining whether to support a resolution.
This is how the Americas ended up failing the commission, and how the commission ended up failing victims of human rights violations. It is a story that took years to take shape and will take years to undo. The United States voted last week against the new council because, a senior State Department official explained in an interview, we couldn't trust the culture to change overnight.
And, of course, it won't. But change has to start somewhere and at some point, and for the majority of countries at the United Nations and many human rights advocates, it started with the council last week.
So far there have been minor gestures that suggest a modicum of political willingness to change the culture. In a decision that the U.S.senior official described as exemplary, Mexico pledged not to engage in seat-swapping during the election of the council's new members on May 9. Whether that commitment survives the installation of a new Mexican government by next year is another question.
Supporters of the council insist that it would have tighter membership controls and that member countries will face a higher level of international scrutiny than before. According to a U.N. diplomat, at least one gross violator -- Zimbabwe -- won't seek membership in the council, presumably because of the added scrutiny. Cuba, nonetheless, has already made its candidacy official for one of the eight slots allotted to Latin America and the Caribbean.
It's hard to hang hope for change on high-minded intentions and idealistic pledges, but once upon a time, they were what inspired the work of the commission. For prisoners of conscience and dissidents such as the Cubans who just completed their third year behind bars, the return of those days can't happen soon enough.
Marcela Sanchez's e-mail address is desdewash@washpost.com.