The Geneva-based Human Rights Commission, charged with the implementation of the Universal Declaration, has been suffering from the credibility deficit ever since it came into existence. Critics have accused its members of sheltering skeletons in their own cupboards while seeking to expose others. There have been repeated calls for reform. In his latest report, In Larger Freedom, the UN secretary general proposed that the Commission be replaced by a new body called the Human Rights Council. The UN General Assembly has voted in favour of the proposed change and the new body is to come into existence on May 9, 2006.

However, the passage of the resolution was not without hiccups. There were sharp differences between the developed and developing countries on a number of issues that could not be bridged. In the voting which ensued an overwhelming majority of the UN members (170 including the EU states) favoured the resolution. The United States was the only major country (along with Israel, Marshall Islands and Palau) to oppose it.

At the end of the day it was virtually the US against the rest. What does this development portend for the future of the human rights movement in the world? Will the new body deliver the goods or will it be a case of old wine in new bottles?

To begin with, the Council members will be elected directly and individually through secret ballot. This is in sharp contrast with the practice in the Commission whose members from the same region did not contest against each other. Regional groupings put forward their names and they were often elected unopposed. Under the new dispensation every candidate will be voted for (and against) separately and need an absolute majority of UN members (not merely those present and voting) to get elected. A state failing to do so will be replaced by another candidate from the same region.

The US and the EU wanted a two-thirds majority rule. The secretary-general too had recommended it in his report. The US was motivated ostensibly by the desire to make it hard for a nation with a poor human rights record to get elected in the General Assembly dominated by the Group of 77. The developing countries favoured an absolute majority. In their opinion this was a stringent enough criterion for the purpose. Besides, they did not want to give the developed countries a veto over who would sit in the Council. Mr Jan Eliasson, the General Assembly president from Sweden, finally brokered the deal with absolute majority as a compromise solution.

The Council, as opposed to the Commission that had 53 members, will be composed of 47 members. The US wanted a “leaner and meaner” body consisting of no more than 30 members. The developing countries, on the other hand, wanted a larger body in view of the UN membership that now stands at 191. Here too they had their way. The Council will remain in session for a period of at least 10 weeks a year with the possibility of emergency sessions. The Commission, by comparison, had remained in session for no more than six weeks. It is worthy of note here that the initial proposal envisaged a full-time rights body.

Last but not the least, the Council members will be required to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights”. In concrete terms, this signifies that the human rights record of all Council members will be subject to scrutiny during their term of office. The General Assembly has been empowered to suspend the membership of those found guilty of gross and systematic violations.

On the basis of the foregoing, theoretically speaking, the Council appears to have more teeth than the Commission. First, prima facie a serious human rights violator should find it hard to get elected — even to contemplate running for election. According to the secretary general the proposed changes are already having an effect, as some governments have issued manifestoes to improve their human rights performance. Second, the power given to the General Assembly to suspend the membership can work as a Damocles’ sword over the Council members. Will things work out the way they are being envisaged?

The answer depends on who will get elected to the Council. Eric Sottas, director of the World Organisation against Torture, fears that because of the election of “unpresentable” states the Council will end up facing the same problems as the Commission. His apprehension is based on the fact that every region can now put forward any number of candidates it wants to. If it proposes no more candidates than the number of seats available to it, its candidates will be elected automatically. But things may not be as simple as Mr Sottas imagines. As he has noted, the position will become clear on May 9 when the first election to the Council takes place.

In our judgment, the success or failure of the new body will depend more on the US attitude than anything else. There is a general feeling that the US is hypocritical because whereas it fulminates against the election of human rights abusers its own hands are not clean. The torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and Bagram airbase or the 32 vetoes in favour of Israel — most of these relating to human rights — are cited as examples. Can we hope to see a change in the US attitude in the future? The evidence so far does not lend itself to such optimism.

Exasperated at the rejection of his proposals, Mr John Bolton, the American permanent representative to the UN, was nonchalant about the new body and skipped most of the preparatory meetings. This was nothing short of a vote of no confidence in the new body.

Also, when after the long interregnum Mr Bolton did appear he demanded representation on the Council for all permanent members of Security Council. Though the Bush Administration subsequently retracted the demand, it was done because there was no way it could have been accepted. The US demand shows its lack of seriousness because the permanent presence of China and Russia who look upon human rights as an internal affair of a state would have meant that the new body would have been stillborn. In our estimation, unless the US radically changes its attitude, the establishment of the Council will represent very little progress.

The writer, Ijaz Hussain, a former dean of social sciences at the Quaid-i-Azam University, is an independent political and legal analyst

Source: Daily Times