The UN Human Rights Council today concluded another session in which it failed to address the vast majority of human rights abuses occurring around the globe. It ignored such serious situations as repression in Burma and North Korea, denial of political rights in China, restrictions on women's rights in Saudi Arabia, and even the violent crackdown on opposition leaders in...
Tomorrow, in the final day of its ongoing session, the UN Human Rights Council will decide between two competing draft resolutions on the human rights situation in Darfur, Sudan. Unfortunately, neither draft goes nearly as far as the recommendations of the report presented to the Council two weeks ago by the Darfur assessment team headed by Nobel Laureate Jody...
On Friday, UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer gave a speech at the Human Rights Council sharply criticizing its record of ignoring gross human rights violations worldwide unless they can be blamed on Israel. Read or watch the speech. In an unprecedented reaction, the Council's Chair, Luis Alfonso De Alba of Mexico, refused to thank UN Watch for its statement...
On Monday, the UN Human Rights Council voted to discontinue examining the human rights situations in Iran and Uzbekistan, which it was considering under its confidential complaint procedure (known as the "1503 procedure"). See the Reuters story here. The recommendation to end consideration was made by a five-country committee (one from each UN regional group) called the...
At its ongoing fourth session, the UN Human Rights Council's European Union and African Group members have now tabled competing draft resolutions on the human rights situation in Darfur, Sudan. Both drafts purport to be "follow-up" to the report presented to the Council last Friday by an assessment team led by Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams—but regrettably, neither actually...
Debating Darfur Battle to Block New Report: The assessment mission created by the Council in December and led by Nobel Laureate Jody Williams presented its report finding "large-scale international crimes" in Darfur. Sudan and its supporters--the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Arab League, almost all of the Council's Asian Group, Russia and Cuba--rejected the report as "invalid"...
As expected, Sudan and the Organization of the Islamic Conference have rejected the report prepared by the Human Rights Council's assessment mission to Darfur, and they want the Council to do the same. (See Reuters and AP stories.) Having not received the desired exculpation of Sudan from the current team, they say that a new team, approved by the Sudanese...
The U.S. announced last week that it again would not seek election to the Council. Despite the body’s serious flaws, UN Watch had urged the U.S. to run, believing that it could better fight for improvements from the inside. Although the U.S. can be—and has been—an active non-member, membership would allow it to do more. (Only members can...
The differential treatment of Israel and Sudan by the Human Rights Council in 2006 extends not only to the findings that its resolutions made (discussed in my previous post), but also to the actions that they mandated. All four resolutions from the Council’s four special sessions established investigatory missions, but they did so in very different ways. ...
Our criticism of the Human Rights Council’s eight resolutions against Israel is not to say that Israel’s human rights record should be immune from criticism. To the contrary, Israel should be held accountable for its human rights abuses, as should every other UN member state. The problem is that at the Council, Israel is not treated like any other UN...
The first two and a half days at the ongoing Human Rights Council session are its "High Level Segment," speeches by the foreign affairs and other ministers who come to Geneva from far and wide for the occasion. These speeches usually are quite bland and polite, but sometimes there are fireworks. Yesterday's colorful quote came from the Cuban...
Thanks, Peggy, for the welcome. UN Watch is glad to have the opportunity to participate in the always interesting discussions at Opinio Juris, and we will be posting updates on the Council over the next three weeks. But first, I’d like to provide some background on the Council and its performance in its three regular sessions and four special...
