28 Feb UN Human Rights Commission: Membership Not the Only Problem
Looking beyond the very real problem of human rights abusers sitting as members of the UN Human Rights Commission, UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer (a former colleague from my days in practice) has a cogent essay in last week’s TNR ($) criticizing the Commission’s 1503 procedure. The 1503 procedure was introduced in the 1970s to enable individuals to bring complaints against states directly to the Commission. In theory, it is a great idea. In practice, it has failed utterly. Why? Confidentiality of the procedure protects the perpetrators at the expense of the complainants, and the politicization of the process used to determine which complaints get through to the full commission has meant almost no real action at all. Neuer concludes that the confidential 1503 procedure does more harm than good; burying some problems (Darfur) in favor of repeatedly blasting favorite targets like Israel. The real action is in the public 1235 procedure of the Commission — “naming and shaming” of violators — which takes place at the plenary session in the Spring. Neuer describes the central challenge of reforming the system:
In many ways, the world’s foremost human-rights body is at its nadir. In December it was indicted by the United Nations. itself for “eroding credibility and professionalism” and for being dominated by states whose interest is “not to strengthen human rights but to protect themselves against criticism or to criticize others.” Kofi Annan, responding to proposals contained in the report that included this unusually candid diagnosis, is expected in March to announce a major attempt to fix the commission, while leading member states are expected to present their own visions for reform during the commission’s first week of ministerial speeches, also next month. Thus far, none of the suggestions (for instance, expanding membership to all 191 U.N. members) provides a solution to the core challenge: How can the objective enforcement of human rights, an apolitical task, be pursued by a body made up entirely of governments, which are inherently political? That is the crucial question confronting the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. And it’s much bigger than Cuba, Zimbabwe, and Saudi Arabia.
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