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Restore credibility to
United Nations panel
Bar serial abusers from
Human Rights Commission
Posted on Fri, Jan. 06,
2006 in The
Miami Herald.
It seems a certainty that the discredited
U.N. Human Rights Commission will be reformed,
and the sooner the better. The goal should
be to create an international protector
and promoter of human rights, one that punishes
violators and takes action before it's too
late to stop genocide and crimes against
humanity. Doing this, however, means departing
from business-as-usual: The new panel must
be insulated from politics and focused on
objective standards of human rights.
Damaged reputation
The United Nations has discussed proposed
changes for years within the context of
overall structural and management reforms.
There's urgency to act on human rights because
the current commission's lack of legitimacy
''casts a shadow on the reputation of the
United Nations system as a whole,'' said
Secretary General Kofi Annan. U.N. executives
would determine the human-rights reforms
quickly if they want to rescue U.N. credibility
this year.
How the Human Rights Commission is transformed
is crucial to avoiding current problems.
Chronic violators -- like Cuba, Sudan and
Libya -- join the commission to deflect
criticism of their own records. But their
participation weakens the U.N.'s overall
effectiveness. That's unacceptable.
The U.N. reforms should:
o Create a human-rights council, raising
it to the status of the Security and Development
councils that already exist.
o Provide enough resources for the council
to work year-round and act whenever human-rights
abuses are uncovered.
o Bar members with dismal human-rights
records. This determination should be made
by independent experts based on universally
accepted human-rights principles and international
law.
o Reduce the number of members from the
current 53 to a more manageable number of
nations with good human-rights records.
o Keep political considerations or conflicts
of interest from tainting the selection
of members or the assessment of human-rights
abuses. China, for example, should not be
able to block sanctions against Sudan, a
valued oil supplier.
Terrible records
In no way should the U.N. Security Council's
five permanent members be assured permanent
seats on the new human-rights council, as
U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton is arguing.
Such a policy would promise seats to two
nations with terrible human-rights records
-- China and Russia. Their presence would
damage the new council's credibility and
defeat the purpose of the reforms in the
first place.
Instead, the United States should advocate
for a smaller, stronger and nimble human-rights
protector that will intervene to prevent
human-rights crises.
© 2006 MiamiHerald.com
and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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