PHA-Exch> Birth pains of the UN Human Rights Council

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: CETIM cetim at bluewin.ch

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Following a long period of negotiation, the Human
Rights Council (HRC) last June adopted an
eagerly awaited document establishing the core
of its operating procedures.
Though the document is incomplete, we have
been able to present a brief analysis in this bulletin,
showing how the great hopes which some
had placed in the creation of this new body were
thwarted, and how the promises made by the initiators
were never kept.
True enough, the risks of failure - that the basic
working mechanisms of the HRC would not be
adopted - were huge. The fear that such a failure
would thereafter contaminate the entire UN apparatus
was real. However, the resulting compromise
is worrying in terms of the future of this body.
Effectively, the right to self-determination no
longer appears on the HRC's agenda, and the
right to development is drowned in a paragraph
supposedly dealing with more than 40 mandates.
Experts and NGOs have been left with very little
room for manoeuvre not to mention the total control
of the new Advisory Committee, which has
replaced the Sub-Commission on the Promotion
and Protection of Human Rights.
The reform undertaken over two years ago,
characterized by an arm wrestling between the
West and Southern countries, has ended up reinforcing
the control by states of the main UN body
on human rights that the HRC was supposed to be.
However, neither party emerges fully victorious
from this struggle, as compromises were made on
both sides, but always to the detriment of Human
Rights. Southern countries now enjoy a comfortable
majority at the HRC (even if they do not form a
homogeneous group), which will eventually grant
them an important role within this body.
While the weakening and/or the control over
human rights mechanisms is "convenient" for
most states, for different reasons of course, this
situation in intolerable for the vast majority of the
world's citizens, whose most basic and elementary
rights are infringed every day.
History reminds us that there is always a discrepancy
between theory and practice. One can
only hope that human rights activists, experts,
NGOs and social movements will be able to carve
out enough space in this struggle so that the promotion
of human rights can continue.

CETIM - Centre Europe-Tiers Monde
Genève, Suisse31 91 52
www.cetim.ch
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