Canada under pressure to stand firm in UN human rights debate

By Steven Edwards
November 6, 2007 
CanWest News Service
Original Source: http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=b5aa984f-6b82-46f4-9740-30e5cf99e366&k=46752

UNITED NATIONS - The Conservative government's declared resolve to make the United Nations an effective human rights monitor will be tested in a debate underway at the world body on new rules for the UN Human Rights Council.
States with poor human rights records were central in drawing up the revised rules, which Canada believes will reduce the ability of the Geneva-based council to highlight human rights abuses around the world.
But while Canada was alone among the council's 47 member states to oppose the changes at the council's June session, human rights activists fear it will drop the fight when the 192-member UN General Assembly is asked to endorse them - a decision that could be weeks even months away.
The United States and Israel also oppose the new rules, but they do not sit on the council, so their responsibility to raise a fuss during the endorsement procedure is arguably not as great.
In Geneva this past June, we heard the most impassioned speech probably ever given by a Canadian UN representative, and it will be astonishing if Canada now forgets about its stand and lets this affront to human rights slip by unchallenged, said Hillel Neuer, a Montreal native who serves as executive director of Geneva-based UN Watch.
But despite our inquiries with diplomats, we have received no signal any government will demand a vote when it hits the General Assembly floor.
The revised rules would see the elimination of mandates for special investigators of alleged human rights abuses in Cuba and Belarus. They would also make it more difficult for member states to name specific countries for violations, a power human rights groups say should be unhindered given the level of alleged abuses in places like Sudan or North Korea.
Finally, an initiative sponsored by Islamic countries would permanently censure Israel under a fixed agenda item.
U.S.-based Freedom House and Directorio Democratico Cuba are among 26 human rights groups that have joined UN Watch in calling on the General Assembly to reject the changes.
Their letter, which is also addressed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UN human rights commissioner Louise Arbour, expresses grave concern about the way Canada ... was denied its right to vote in June because of procedural manoeuvring.
The UN launched the council in 2006 to replace its human rights commission, which human rights abuser states had come to manipulate so easily that many avoided censure.
Canada and other council backers said they felt confident the new body's rules would render it more likely to live up to the UN's billing as the world's foremost monitor of human rights abuses.
But as Arab and Islamic Council members led debates resulting in almost exclusive criticism of Israel, they and other countries also moved to weaken the council's oversight power of all other states.
European Union members in the council agreed to the June package, but Canada was so concerned that then-foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay issued a rebuke.
Canada is very disappointed that the human rights commission, in the important decisions that affect its future work, did not fully respect the principles upon which it is founded, he said.
He also pledged Canada would continue to insist that the council uphold its own founding principles.
Now under Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier, the Foreign Affairs Department did not immediately respond to an inquiry Monday about the position Canada will take in an eventual General Assembly ruling.
Canadian representative Terry Cormier delivered what Neuer described as Canada's impassioned speech.
By denying Canada its right to call for a vote on this subject, this council threatens to undermine not only its own rules, of procedure and those of the General Assembly, but more than 60 years of established practice of the UN, Cormier said.