U.S. Returns to Human Rights Council As An Observer, For Now

By Patrick Goodenough
March 02, 2009
CNS News
Original Source: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=44298

(CNSNews.com) – Nine months after the Bush administration ended its already pared-down involvement in the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, its successor has reversed the move, a step that could lead to membership for the first time.
 
On Monday, when the HRC opens its month-long session in Geneva, a U.S. delegation will once again be present as an observer.
 
The U.S. has shunned the Geneva-based body since its establishment in 2006, citing its disproportionate and condemnatory focus on Israel, attacks on freedom of expression and failure to denounce abuses in Darfur and elsewhere.
 
Although it did not stand in council elections in 2006, 2007 or 2008, the U.S. did participate in sessions as an active observer. Last June, however, it said it was ending even that involvement. It would henceforth only participate in debates when it felt compelled to do so by “matters of deep national interest.”
 
On Friday, State Department spokesman Robert Wood announced that the U.S. would return to the HRC, as an observer, during its next session. Beginning on Monday with a three-day “high-level segment,” the 10th regular session will run until March 27.
 
Wood said the U.S. shared concerns “that the council’s trajectory is disturbing, that it needs fundamental change to do more to promote and protect the human rights of people around the world, and that it should end its repeated and unbalanced criticisms of Israel.”
 
“We believe, however, it furthers our interests and will do more both to achieve these ends and advance human rights if we are part of the conversation and present at the council’s proceedings.”
 
The announcement was contained in a statement about the U.S. decision to withdraw from the upcoming U.N. racism conference, known as Durban II. ( \t  see related story)
 
Wood did not say whether the U.S. would seek to join the HRC as a full member. In May, three seats designated for Western countries – currently held by Canada, Germany and Switzerland – come up for election.
 
Leading human rights advocacy groups have been highly critical of Washington’s stance on the council, arguing that the U.S. could achieve more as a member than as an observer or – since last June – a non-participant.

If countries like the U.S. don’t make use of forums like the HRC, then “the human rights bad guys hijack it,” Human Rights Watch associate director Carroll Bogert told Australian national radio on Monday.
 
“If the U.S. are going to sit in the back row and not raise a word, then of course countries like Algeria or Libya are going to take the stage and they cannot be allowed to use these bodies for their own purposes,” she said. “But it’s about the good guys doing nothing as much as it is about the bad guys being overactive.”
 
Last November, several dozen senior figures including former secretaries and state and defense, ambassadors and lawmakers urged then President-elect Obama to “obtain a seat on the faltering Human Rights Council and work to influence it from within.”
 
Inherent weakness
 
Critics of the HRC argue, however, that its key weakness is an inbuilt one: even if the U.S. was elected to a seat, it would be one of just seven members from the Western group in the 47-member body.
 
In line with U.N. “geographic distribution” requirements, the rest comprises 13 members from Asia, 13 from Africa, eight from Latin America and the Caribbean, and six from Eastern Europe. (The U.N. recognizes five regional groups.)
 
While those regions do have their share of democracies, in practice the balance of council seats, filled by General Assembly secret ballot, has not been weighed towards countries with strong human rights records.
 
Currently, members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) account for 16 of the council’s seats. Of them, only one – Indonesia – qualifies as a “free” country in the assessment of democracy watchdog Freedom House.
 
Apart from the Islamic states, present members also include others with poor rights records, including China, Russia and Cuba. In total, only 22 of the 47 members make the “free” column in Freedom House’s rankings, which are based on scores for political freedoms and civil liberties.
 
In the May election, 18 of the HRC’s seats will change hands. Members cannot stand for re-election for two consecutive terms, and among those leaving are some of the more controversial members, including China, Russia, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.
 
‘Worse than before’
 
The HRC was established to replace the 60-year-old U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which was discredited by politicization and the presence and conduct of rights-abusing countries.
 
Although the U.S. supported the reform, in the end it was one of only four countries to vote against the resolution that set up the council, arguing that it did not go far enough to ensure it would not replicate its predecessor.
 
By 2008, U.S. officials – including Washington’s ambassador to the U.N. – were pronouncing the council worse than the commission.
 
Apart from the council’s regular sessions, it has also held 10 “special sessions,” five of which have targeted Israel. The Geneva-based non-governmental organization U.N. Watch calculates that Israel, one of 192 U.N. member states, has alone accounted for 80 percent of the council’s country censures.
 
Criticism also met a 2007 decision to end the mandates of special investigators monitoring abuses in Belarus and Cuba. The State Department deplored the decision, calling the countries “two of the world’s most active perpetrators of serious human rights violations.”
 
Another issue of concern was the OIC campaign to use the council to counter what it calls “defamation of religion.” Last March, the HRC voted to redefine the mandate of a special investigator on freedom of expression, requiring him now also to report on cases “in which the abuse of the right of freedom of expression constitutes an act of racial or religious discrimination.”
 
Even the council’s most far-reaching reform, the  \t  “universal periodic review” (UPR) under which every country’s record is examined, has not met expectations. Undergoing its first UPR last month,  \t  China simply shrugged off concerns raised by Western countries, while its allies praised its record.
 
‘Liberty Forum’
 
In his final speech to the U.N. General Assembly, last September, President Bush called for “an immediate review of the Human Rights Council, which has routinely protected violators of human rights.” Under the resolution that established the council, a review is required within five years, or by 2011.
 
Some experts think the U.S. should hold off on joining the HRC until that review takes place.
 
In a recent “memo” to Obama on engagement with the U.N., Heritage Foundation scholars Brett Schaefer and Steven Groves argued that joining the council before it undergoes vital reforms “will only give it undeserved legitimacy.”
 
“There remains a slim hope that the Human Rights Council could right itself through a mandatory General Assembly review by 2011,” they said. “You should seek to address the HRC’s flaws in that review but eschew any formal association such as seeking a seat on the council until its flaws are addressed.”
 
Schaefer and Groves also called for the creation of  “a new and more transparent forum of freedom-loving countries,” as an alternative to the HRC – a “Liberty Forum for Human Rights.”
 
“Such a body should be structured to avoid the inherent flaws and key impediments of the U.N. system. Specifically, membership should include only states that actually observe basic human rights.”