UN Reform and the UN Human Rights Council

By Thomas Robertson
U.S. Ambassador to Slovenia
Mag, January 25, 2006

World leaders founded the United Nations to help prevent human suffering. The worst human suffering is caused by governments that fail to protect the human rights of their people.  The UN Commission on Human Rights was created to monitor, promote, and protect human rights around the world.   One of its first and most impressive achievements was the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  As a watchdog of sorts, the Commission was meant to keep an eye on countries and speak out when abuse occurred.  It also was supposed to help countries improve their human rights by creating assistance programs, for example to train judges and legislators.  

Unfortunately, the Commission has not done its job well in recent years and has not lived up to the noble intentions of its founders.  It has lost all credibility.  Weak election rules have allowed the world’s worst human rights violators to become members.  In 2003, the Cuban regime was summarily executing political dissidents right in the middle of the Commission’s session, while Libya was holding the chairmanship.   In 2004, Sudan was elected to the Commission for a second consecutive term in the face of clear evidence that it was supporting genocide in its Darfur region. Beyond just embarrassing the Commission, these violators purposely undermine it.  They know that the Commission will focus on their human rights abuses, so they derail any meaningful work it tries to do.  They claim that it is “shameful” to criticize countries by name for their human rights violations; they ignore the fact that it is even more “shameful” to commit genocide.   

These misguided politics have to go.  The United Nations’ chief human rights body must be recreated, comprised of countries committed to promoting human rights, and armed with a mandate both to assist countries in meeting their human rights obligations and to call international attention to human rights crises.  No country has a perfect human rights record, but the worst of the worst should not be part of an international body created to monitor human rights.  The world needs a strong and credible new Human Rights Council created to replace the dysfunctional Commission on Human Rights so that the march of freedom and the alleviation of human suffering can progress.  Abused people around the globe deserve – and desperately need – a universal protector of their basic rights. 

Simply, the Human Rights Council should be able to respond to human rights abuses. It has two options.  Preferably, it should offer help and cooperation.  The UN can reach out to states that want to improve their human rights practices and help them to do that. In fact, the United States supports the idea that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights should receive more money for projects that help countries in this way.   

But what happens when states don’t want to cooperate, when regimes would rather isolate themselves rather than admit that they need help?  When grave human rights violations occur, UN Member States have a responsibility that goes beyond giving unwanted advice that can be easily ignored. 

The UN must be able to bring atrocities to the attention of the rest of the world.  The Human Rights Council must be empowered to condemn serious human rights violations and to assign UN experts to investigate them. In such cases, it is important for countries to know that the world is watching their actions.  As responsible members of the world community we need to show victims of human rights abuses and atrocities that they are not alone or forgotten. There is no purpose to a UN human rights organization if it cannot scrutinize human rights abusers and give comfort to those who suffer.    

Our support for a more robust UN role in the protection of human rights worldwide is not politically motivated.  No country should be exempt from the scrutiny of this new UN human rights body.  The United States pledges to work closely with that body which, we believe, should have a sacred trust, a trust conferred upon it by the world's most universal organization, to vigorously promote freedom and to protect and defend those whose freedoms have been violated.

Sadly, the Human Rights Council negotiations in New York reveal that some countries actively seek to undermine real reform.  They want to change little more than the name of the Commission on Human Rights.  These states oppose even minimal standards for Council membership, and scoff at the idea that elections to the Council should factor in a nation’s commitment to promote human rights.  Such countries oppose the suggestion, for example, that governments under UN Security Council sanctions for human rights reasons be ineligible to serve on the new human rights body. 

Responsible nations must strengthen and focus the mandate of this body so that it can more effectively deal with human rights crises.  If, at the outset, UN member states undermine the Council’s mandate for fear of increased scrutiny, the Council’s ability to function meaningfully and effectively will be compromised.  We cannot accept an impotent UN body that will never be able to truly help to secure the freedoms to which people around the world aspire.  It is time to step up to our mutual responsibility and create an institution that will live up to the vision of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.