United Nations Human Rights Council

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The United Nations Human Rights Council is an international body within the United Nations System. Its stated purpose is to address human rights violations. The Council is the successor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which was often criticised for the high-profile positions it gave to member states that did not guarantee the human rights of their own citizens.

The United Nations General Assembly passed GA resolution 60/251 on 15 March 2006, which created the new human rights body, with the approval of 170 members of the 191-nation Assembly. Only the United States, the Marshall Islands, Palau, and Israel voted against the Council's creation, claiming that it would have too little power and that there were insufficient safeguards to prevent human rights-abusing nations from taking control. Belarus, Iran and Venezuela abstained from the vote, and a further seven countries (Central African Republic, North Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Georgia, Kiribati, Liberia and Nauru) were absent from the session.

Contents

[edit] Council structure

The 47-seat Human Rights Council replaces the former 53-member Commission on Human Rights. The Commission was an independent body, but the Council has been elevated to the status of a subsidiary body of the Assembly. The 47 seats in the Council are distributed among the UN's regional groups as follows: 13 for Africa, 13 for Asia, 6 for Eastern Europe, 8 for Latin America and the Caribbean, and 7 for the Western European and Others Group.

In an attempt to remedy problems of the former Commission, which was criticised among other actions for the election of Libya to its chairmanship in 2003, the resolution establishing the Council specified that "members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights" and will be subject to periodic review. Each member nation of the Council must be approved individually and directly by a majority (96 of 191) of the members of the General Assembly, in a secret ballot. Council membership is limited to two consecutive terms, and any Council member may be suspended by a two-thirds vote of the Assembly. Despite these efforts the initial members of the Council included numerous states with poor records on human rights, such as the People's Republic of China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Pakistan and Russia.

The Commission concluded its work on 16 June 2006, making way for the first meeting of the Council which was held on 19 - 30 June 2006.

[edit] Members

Members of the Council are elected to staggered three-year terms. The first election of members was held on 9 May 2006.[1] The successful candidates were:

2007 Group[2]

2008 Group[3]

2009 Group[4]

Their terms of office began on 19 June 2006. On 19 May it was announced that Mexico would serve as the Council's chair during its first year of existence.

[edit] Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights

The Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights is the main subsidiary body of the Human Rights Council. It is composed of 26 elected human rights experts whose mandate is to conduct studies on discriminatory practices and make recommendations to ensure that racial, national, religious and linguistic minorities are protected by law.

The experts sit on Working Groups that investigate the following issues:

[edit] Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council

Main article: Special Rapporteur

"Special procedures" is the name given to the mechanisms established by the former United Nations Commission on Human Rights and continued by the Human Rights Council to monitor human rights violations in specific countries or examine global human rights issues. Special procedures can be either individuals (called "Special Rapporteurs", "Special Representatives" or "Independent Experts") who are leading experts in a particular area of human rights, or working groups usually composed of five members. In order to preserve their independence they do not receive pay for their work.

Various activities can be undertaken by special procedures, including responding to individual complaints, conducting studies, providing advice on technical cooperation, and engaging in promotional activities. The special mechanisms are categorised according to thematic mandates and country mandates. Currently, there are 29 thematic and 13 country mandates under special procedures.[5] The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights provides staffing and logistical support to aid each mandate-holder in carrying out their work.

During its first session (19-30 June 2006), the Human Rights Council decided to extend the special procedures mandates for one year, subject to further review. An intergovernmental working group has been established to assess the mandates and make recommendations for improving their effectiveness.

Special procedures also include Working Groups made up of legal experts who monitor and investigate specific human rights concerns. There are currently three such groups:

[edit] Position of the United States

U.S. President George W. Bush declared that the United States would not seek a seat on the Council, saying it would be more effective from the outside. He did pledge, however, to support the Council financially. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "We will work closely with partners in the international community to encourage the council to address serious cases of human rights abuse in countries such as Iran, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Burma, Sudan, and North Korea."

A spokesman for Kofi Annan expressed the Secretary-General's disappointment that the United States had decided not to run for the Council, but he said that Annan hoped that the United States would reconsider in 2007.

U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton rejected a reporter's question which asked him if the United States thought that, after the alleged abuses in the Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantánamo Bay, the United States would be unable to muster the 96 votes from the General Assembly necessary to gain a seat.

The U.S. State Department said on 5 March 2007 that, for the second year in a row, the United States has decided not to seek a seat on the Human Rights Council, asserting the body had lost its credibility with repeated attacks on Israel and a failure to confront other rights abusers. [1] Spokesman Sean McCormack said the council has had a “singular focus” on Israel, while countries such as Cuba, Myanmar and North Korea have been spared scrutiny. He said that though the United States will have only an observer role, it will continue to shine a spotlight on human rights issues. The most senior Republican member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, supported the administration decision. “Rather than standing as a strong defender of fundamental human rights, the Human Rights Council has faltered as a weak voice subject to gross political manipulation,” she said.

[edit] Council's position on Israel

The new UN Human Rights Council has specifically condemned only one country, Israel. It voted on 30 June 2006 to make a review of alleged human rights abuses by Israel a permanent feature of every council session. The Council’s special rapporteur on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is its only expert mandate with no year of expiry. The resolution, which was sponsored by Organization of the Islamic Conference, passed by a vote of 29 to 12 with five abstentions. Israel, the United States and some human rights groups raised concerns about this revival of a practice of the UN's discredited former Commission on Human Rights.[6]

At its Second Special Session in August 2006, the Council announced the establishment of a High-Level Commission of Inquiry charged with probing allegations that Israel systematically targeted and killed Lebanese civilians during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.[7] The resolution was passed by a vote of 27 in favour to 11 against, with 8 abstentions. Before and after the vote several member states and NGOs objected that by targeting the resolution solely at Israel and failing to address Hezbollah attacks on Israeli civilians, the Council risked damaging its credibility. The members of the Commission of Inquiry, as announced on 1 September 2006, are Clemente Baena Soares of Brazil, Mohamed Chande Othman of Tanzania, and Stelios Perrakis of Greece. The Commission noted that its report on the conflict would be incomplete without fully investigating both sides, but that "the Commission is not entitled, even if it had wished, to construe [its charter] as equally authorizing the investigation of the actions by Hezbollah in Israel,"[8] as the Council had explicitly prohibited it from investigating the actions of Hezbollah.

On 29 November 2006, Secretary-General Kofi Annan criticised the Human Rights Council for focusing only on Israel and neglecting other parts of the world such as Darfur, which had what he termed "graver" crises. [2] [3] Annan reiterated this position in his formal address on 8 December 2006 (International Human Rights Day), noting the Commission's "disproportionate focus on violations by Israel. Not that Israel should be given a free pass. Absolutely not. But the Council should give the same attention to grave violations committed by other states as well." [4]

By the beginning of 2007, the Council had spent much of its three regular meetings and four special sessions focusing almost exclusively on the actions of only one country, Israel. The Council has passed eight resolutions condemning Israel, and none condemning any other country. More resolutions targeting Israel have been proposed for the upcoming session.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ http://www.un.org/ga/60/elect/hrc/
  2. ^ http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/year.htm
  3. ^ http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/year.htm
  4. ^ http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/year.htm
  5. ^ http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/special/docs/13threport.AEV.pdf
  6. ^ http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/06/30/global13685.htm
  7. ^ http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/2/index.htm
  8. ^ Human Rights Council, United Nations (2006). Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution S-2/1*.

[edit] External links

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