Areas of Progress
The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council (UNHRC) OR the Council is the main intergovernmental United Nations (UN) body responsible for addressing issues of human rights on the international scale. The UN General Assembly instituted the Human Rights (HRC) in 2006, which was designed to replace the Commission on Human Rights that was condemned for its clear inefficiency in dealing with issues of human rigA abuses and for many broadly perceived human right abusers, which served as it members. Since 2006, several governments along with the observers globally have raised grave concerns regarding the Council’s focus on Israel, as well as clear lack of attention to other demanding human rights issues in the world (Piccone 1). In specific, the UNHRC has been criticized of the inclusion of the human rights state in Palestine, as well as other occupied Arab regions (Israel) as a permanent issue of the UNHRC agenda. There is no other nation-specific human rights state that has been highlighted in this way. Contrarily, supporters of the Council claim that it is an improvement unlike the earlier commission. These supporters claim that the UNHRC‘s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) procedure that purposes to assess each member state’s realization of its human rights duties, in an efficient means for dealing with human rights issues in many nations. Several supporters of the UNHRC are inspired by the amplified focus to human rights circumstances, like North Korea, Iran, as well as Syria (Farrow 24).
The Council has the obligation of promoting universal human respect for the safeguarding of all human rights, as well as fundamental freedoms for all people. The Council aims at preventing along with combating human rights breaches, which include gross and systematic breaches, as well as to make recommendations thereon. Furthermore, the Council works to coordinate and enhance the mainstreaming of the human rights in line with the United Nations system. As a subsidiary of the UN General Assembly, the Council reports directly to the General Assembly’s 193 members states. The Council gets considerable, as well as technical support from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which is a department in the United Nations Secretariat. The UNHRC is a political body where each member states have diverse human rights principles, domestic considerations, as well as foreign policy precedence. The Council’s decisions, resolutions along with the recommendations are not legally binding (Franks 1).
Membership
The Council has presently finished its second round of publicly investigating the human rights record of each member of the UN. The unique mechanism permits, for the original time, the chance for any government to raise issues, as well as make possible recommendations regarding any other state’s human rights behavior. For many years, the Council has provided many recommendations where the governments are making more action-based recommendations, as well as governments accepting these recommendations. Remarkably, the five states getting the most UPR recommendations are amongst the most repressive globally that include Iran, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, and Egypt (Jones 1). The process is vital in leveraging human rights defenders locally and globally by holding governments responsible to their pledges. In addition, it too universalizes and depoliticizes human rights as a primary duty of international law. This is a huge development and improvement on its predecessor that scrutinized only a portion of the UN member states (Diehl A19).
Whilst UPR is a crucial improvement in the right course, its certainly is not enough to fulfill the Council’s mandate to address dire situations involving gross and systematic violations of human rights. To that end, the Council has dispatched more independent experts, known as special procedures, as well as fact-finding missions and commissions of inquiry to examine human rights abuses in some of the most urgent situations around the world (Lazaroff, 1). Their reports provide authoritative findings on the complex patterns of violations, identification of responsible actors, and recommendations for accountability and reform. Between 2006 and 2015, the number of country-specific reports submitted by special procedures increased by 104 percent and the number of governments issuing standing invitations to these independent experts almost doubled to 114 (Jeremy 1).
The Human Rights Council is known as the most open and accessible body in the entire UN structure. This is precisely as it should be given that every human being is entitled to human rights under international law and deserves a chance to be heard. With the Council meeting three times a year in regular session, plus UPR and special sessions, side events, expert panels and a regular call for submissions from nongovernmental organizations, civil society has a special year-round place in the Council’s activities. With the support of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Council’s programs are ever more transparent through its website and webcasting facilities (Diehl A19). Special reporters routinely reach out to civil society activists and experts on their country missions, a key ingredient for ensuring their work is relevant to human rights defenders on the ground. UPR is also opening new doors for human rights activists to make their case directly to government officials for reforms that meet international standards and establishing systematic follow-up reviews.
Recommendations
The UN General Assembly is responsible for electing members to the Council based on “the contribution of candidates to the promotion and protection of human rights and their voluntary pledges and commitments made thereto.” In addition, once elected, members are charged with upholding “the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights” and “shall fully cooperate with the Council.”[3] Sitting members that commit gross and systematic human rights violations can be suspended by the General Assembly. These criteria were intended to fix a recurring problem, which plagued the predecessor Commission on Human Rights, of members unwilling to honor or, worse, subverting the human rights promotion mission of the body. With the reallocation of seats geared more to Africa and Asia in 2006, these rules were also meant to guard against a predominant influence by non-democratic states uncommitted to the UN’s human rights pillar. At present, about 45 percent of Council members are rated as free in Freedom House’s annual ratings and 23 percent are graded as not free (Cavaliere 1).
The annual ritual of singling out Israel for violations committed in the course of its five-decade long occupation of the Palestinian territories is hypocritical and violates the letter and spirit of the Council’s principles of “objectivity and non-selectivity.” It is long past time for moving Israel/OPT resolutions to the regular agenda item that deals with country situations, like any other country, and to reduce the number of Israel/OPT resolutions to a manageable and proportionate size. A serious negotiation should take place, perhaps led by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, with mediating support from states like Norway and Morocco that would bring together Israel, Palestine and the Arab states for this purpose. The United States might help play a supporting role in brokering such an agreement as part of an early confidence-building step in an Arab/Israeli peace process. I agree, however, with the Council on Foreign Relations report published earlier this year that Congress should avoid conditioning its membership on the Council on eliminating Item 7 – it’s the wrong tool for the right objective.
- The Council adopt new norms and monitoring in such areas as: protecting freedom of association and assembly against the growing attacks on civil society and human rights defenders; preventing violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI); combating religious prejudice whilst safeguarding freedom of expression; and reproving for the first time governments that deliberately block or disrupt access to the Internet (Goodenough 1). Thus, the SOGI resolution also broke new ground in appointing an independent expert to conduct country visits to assess the status of LBGT rights, connect activists and governments and supply reports in addition to recommendations to the Council in addition to the General Assembly (Cavaliere 1).
- The council should embrace new norms along with monitoring like fields areas like protecting freedom of association and assembly against the growing attacks on civil society and human rights defenders; preventing violence and discrimination founded on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI); combating religious intolerance while protecting freedom of expression; and condemning for the first time governments that intentionally block or disrupt access to the Internet (Piccone 1).
Conclusions
Finally, the US faces an obvious choice: amid engaging deliberately as a honorable channel through the global human rights system, or withdrawing to its own corner and letting authoritarian states weaken and dismantle that system. There ought to be no doubt in anyone’s mind that they are ready and willing to do so (Bayefsky 1). Thus, enhancing and safeguarding human rights is too important to our national interests to be left to the spoilers and the naysayers. The Council, we should recall, is but one instrument in our repertoire of tools to advance human rights around the world. But as demonstrated by the examples above, and even with its faults, it remains the only global human rights body with the legitimacy and universality to expand primary principles of human dignity to every corner of the world.
Bayefsky, Anne. The UNHRC: Hard at work condemning Israel. The Jerusalem Post. 2011. P.1.
Cavaliere, Victoria. UN Elects Egypt, Angola to Rights Council, Rejects Belarus. VOA News, 2007.
Diehl, Jackson. A Shadow on the Human Rights Movement. Washingtonpost.com. p. A19, 2007.
Farrow, Ronan. The U.N.’s Human-Rights Sham. The Wall Street Journal. 1(2), 2008; 23-29.
Franks, Tim. UN expert stands by Nazi comments. BBC. Richard Falk. “Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust.
Goodenough, Patrick. House Foreign Affairs Chairman: U.S. Must Withdraw from U.N. Human Rights Council. Cybercast News Service, 2011.
Jeremy Sharon. UN’s Richard Falk under fire for ‘anti-Semitic’ cartoon Jerusalem Post,2011.
Jones, Sam. Eritrea human rights abuses may be crimes against humanity, says UN. The Guardian. 2011. P.1.
Lazaroff, Tovah. Clinton: UNHRC bias against Israel undermines its work. The Jerusalem Post.2011. P.1.
Lynch, Colum. U.S. to Seek Seat on U.N. Human Rights Council. The Washington Post.P.1
Piccone, Ted. Assessing the United Nations Human Rights Council. Brookings. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/assessing-the-united-nations-human-rights- council https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/assessing-the-united-nations-human- rights-council https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/assessing-the-united-nations- human-rights-council/.
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