US reservations on Human Rights Council approval
Regional-UN, Politics, 2/28/2006

Calling the most-recent draft of a Human Rights Council "a solid basis to move forward," United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan cautioned yesterday against "line-by-line negotiations" over the blueprint for a new body to replace the much-criticized Human Rights Commission.

"If at this stage we get into line-by-line negotiations or discussions, I am afraid it will lead to major delays and can cause a serious problem. I would appeal to Member States to understand that it is not a perfect world," Annan told reporters in Geneva, urging approval of the text put forward by General Assembly President Jan Eliasson.

"I think overall, we do have a solid basis to move forward. As you know, I have recommended the approval of the President's package and so has the High Commissioner for Human Rights, whom I'll be meeting later this afternoon."

Annan said that he hoped Member States would approve the proposal for the Human Rights Council this week, "adding that the longer you let this sort of thing slide, the more precarious it gets."

"There are enough good elements in the proposal of the President for all of us to be able to say: this is not old wine in [a]new bottle. There are enough positive elements for us to move with it and I hope the Americans will look at it in this spirit and join the vast majority of governments who seem ready to accept the Chairman's proposal."

At a press briefing in New York today, a spokeswoman for Annan said that the Secretary-General's position on the Council had not changed, despite a statement from US Ambassador John Bolton that the United States would vote against the proposed text.

Eliasson unveiled the draft blueprint for the Council last Thursday, envisioning a body with higher status and greater accountability than the Commission that meets yearly in Geneva.

"While we will build on the positive achievements and best practices of the Commission, some of the elements we are considering will make the Human Rights Council a truly new and different body -- a fresh start," the President of the General Assembly said in introducing the draft resolution for the body, which was called for by world leaders at a September 2005 summit in New York.

According to Eliasson, a major improvement of the proposed Council is the requirement that its members, elected individually by the Assembly, would be judged on their human rights records with the proviso that they can be suspended if they themselves commit gross and systematic violations.

Eliasson also said that the new Council would have a higher standing as a subsidiary body of the General Assembly, would meet year round as opposed to the six-week annual session of the Commission, and conduct a "universal, periodic review" of all States' adherence to human rights norms, starting by scrutinizing its members.

In addition, Eliasson said that the latest text took heed of the violence over the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad by including a preambular paragraph on the need for dialogue and understanding among civilizations, cultures and religions.

Speaking last week, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour also called for speedy approval of the Council, warning that failure by the General Assembly to do this could immeasurably damage the cause of human rights, and saying that there was no reason to believe that further negotiations would produce a better mechanism.

"The text submitted to the General Assembly by its President has the features to allow the future Council to deal more objectively, and credibly, with human rights violations worldwide," she said.

The US sees these efforts as inadequate. The United States wants to reopen negotiations on the draft resolution establishing a United Nations Human Rights Council, US Ambassador John Bolton said yesterday.

"My instructions are to reopen the negotiations and to try and correct the manifold deficiencies in the text of the resolution or alternatively to push off consideration of the resolution for several months," Bolton told journalists.

"We are very disappointed with the draft... we don't think it's acceptable," Bolton said of the draft resolution presented February 23 by General Assembly President Jan Eliasson.

If the General Assembly president brings the resolution to the plenary in the next few days, the ambassador said, the United States "will call for a vote and vote no."

The United States is prepared to stand alone in voting against the draft resolution, Bolton said.

Eliasson has said that he hopes the resolution will be adopted by consensus the week of February 27.

A spokesperson for the General Assembly president said that a number of member states have indicated that they still are awaiting responses from their capitals to the draft resolution.

Pragati Pascale, the president's spokesman, said Eliasson would not comment on Bolton's remarks and has received no formal communication from the United States.

Eliasson, Pascale said, still feels it "is important to move to closure as soon as possible on this issue to enable a smooth transition when the Human Rights Commission meets in March. Reopening negotiations is not likely to produce a better outcome and there is nothing to be gained by waiting."

Bolton said US diplomats are contacting other delegations "making it plain... we want to reopen the negotiations and have real international negotiations and correct the deficiencies in the current draft."

"We remain committed to trying to convince other nations that cosmetic reform alone is not sufficient, that we need real change in the way the UN decision making mechanism functions," the ambassador said.

"We wanted effective change in the Human Rights Commission, which was obviously broken beyond repair," the US ambassador said.

Mark Lagon, US deputy assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, said February 23 that the United States is unwilling "to settle for something that is just a change in name and schedule."

Particularly, the United States wants "to make sure the procedures for electing members and for disqualifying the most bloodthirsty regimes in the world are established so that we turn a page in the history of the Commission on Human Rights -- which has done much good but which has lost credibility by becoming a body of not just firefighters but arsonists."

David Schwarz, who has served as a public delegate on three US delegations to the Commission on Human Rights, said that without setting clear objectives and verifiable membership criteria and requiring a comprehensive review of each prospective member's human rights record before elections, the new Human Rights Council "could drift back toward the situation that crippled the commission."

Leaving key issues unresolved or not addressing the structural problems that led to the dysfunction of the commission "is not a fix or a solution but a recipe for repeating the mistakes of the past," Schwarz said.

The draft resolution would establish a 47-member Human Rights Council elected by a majority of UN members. Every new member would undergo a human rights review.

The United States is pressing for a council of about 30 members elected by a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly.

Lagon said that a two-thirds majority would set "a high bar for election" and boost the credibility of the council's membership. "All candidates, including the US, would have to work hard to be elected," he said.

Previous Stories:
  UN chief urges media not to publish prophet Muhammad cartoons   (2/10/2006)
  General Assembly resumes talks on Human Rights Council   (1/12/2006)
  Annan has full confidence in UN human rights chief after US criticism   (12/10/2005)

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