Wrongs Council

Despite a high-profile effort to reform the world's top human-rights panel, the new U.N. Human Rights Council continues to face the same criticisms that plagued its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights. Experts say bloc voting, loose membership standards, and bias against Israel are keeping the two-year-old council from living up to expectations as a responsible watchdog over global human-rights norms. It is earning a failing grade from a broad range of groups, including human-rights advocates, international-law experts, and democracy activists. Experts say the council's condemnation of the human-rights situations in Darfur, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo are steps in the right direction, and there is also a broad expectation that a new U.S. administration in Washington could change the contentious relationship between the council and the United States, which is not a member. But in a year during which the world body marked the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, many see the new rights council as a stain on the U.N.'s reputation.

The Creation of the Human Rights Council
The Human Rights Council emerged from a reform process initiated by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in March 2006 to monitor violations of human rights and encourage their protection. The council is the successor of the Commission on Human Rights, which had become widely discredited for allowing states with questionable human-rights records to gain membership and avoid scrutiny. By an almost unanimous vote—the United States, Israel, Palau, and the Marshall Islands were the sole dissenters—the General Assembly overhauled the commission to create the council. The new council was designed to serve as an arena for members to address ongoing abuses and for nongovernmental organizations to voice concerns or to lobby states to take action. While the body has no enforcement power, it makes recommendations to the U.N. General Assembly and can spotlight human-rights abusers.

Several structural changes were made, including:

Membership.
While the commission had 53 members, the council has only 47. The U.N.'s five regional groups are each allotted a set number of seats, which differs slightly from the allotment of seats in the commission. During the negotiations to create the council, the United States argued to decrease the membership size based on the theory that smaller U.N. bodies are more effective, says Jeffrey Laurenti, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. Negotiations ended with a reduction in the number of Western seats, a decrease from 10 to seven. Members are elected by an absolute majority vote in the General Assembly and are limited to two consecutive terms, each lasting three years. Members in the commission were chosen by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to serve an unlimited number of three-year terms. Many experts say that membership standards still aren't strict, though members must now explicitly pledge to uphold human-rights standards, as well as undergo periodic reviews of their performance in upholding such freedoms. Nevertheless, the council's defeat of Belarus's bid for membership in 2007 signifies the tougher membership criteria is more than window dressing, says Lawrence H. Moss, special counsel for Human Rights Watch. In addition, a two-thirds majority vote by the U.N. General Assembly can suspend a council member for committing "gross and systematic" human-rights violations.

Special Procedures.
Special procedures refer to mandates of special rapporteurs or working groups to monitor country-specific or thematic rights violations, such as the human-rights situation in Myanmar or extrajudicial executions the world over. As a part of the transition from the old commission to the new council structure, all thematic mandates have been renewed and a few have been added, like the mandate on access to safe drinking water. Country-specific mandates are one of the most effective tools of the council, says Paula Schriefer, director of advocacy at Freedom House, a U.S.-based nonprofit research institute. However, the numbers of country-specific mandates are declining as countries increasingly call for their abolition. Allegations of bias and heavy politicization are frequent critiques, with many states saying they unfairly target developing countries.

Special Rapporteurs.
Individuals that monitor and report on specific mandates through visits and discussions with local organizations are known as special rapporteurs. Cuba and Belarus's mandates were discontinued in 2007 amidst critiques by states that each country's special rapporteur's report was overblown and at times incorrect. The representative for the Russian Federation said the report on Belarus was written "at the behest of political demands," while the representative from Cuba called its report, "a true program for regime change." Although outvoted, representatives from the Western bloc stated ongoing human-rights violations and the states' noncooperation as reasons to extend the mandates. As a result of the battle over Cuba's and Belarus's mandates, a Code of Conduct for special rapporteurs was created that emphasized the "centrality of the notions of impartiality and objectivity." While seemingly benign, the Code of Conduct further restricts the rapporteur, a position that has been historically underfunded and unpopular, says Freedom House's Schriefer.

Universal Periodic Review.
One of the most significant breaks from the structure of the old commission is the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), experts say. All U.N. member states must undergo a threefold assessment of their compliance with human-rights obligations. The assessment consists of a self-evaluation by the country under review, a report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on any applicable treaties and domestic laws, and a compilation of observations from nongovernmental organizations and concerned states. Countries with poor human-rights records can easily ignore the recommendations that come out of UPR, says Schriefer, and a bigger role for experts would strengthen the process. The effectiveness of the UPR remains to be seen and reviews of big players like China and Russia will be good tests, experts say.

Criticisms of the Human Rights Council
Reforms notwithstanding, experts on human rights continue to lament the tendency of council members to vote in blocs rather than address each issue individually. During the 2007-08 cycle, for instance, the African group was particularly prone to voting as a bloc, says a report by the Democracy Coalition Project. Other blocs include the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)  and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which experts say tend to regard economic and security ties as more important than chastising a country for its human-rights abuses. As a result, "Democracies do not always practice what they preach," says Moss of Human Rights Watch.

One of the chief U.S. critiques of the council is its disproportionate focus on Israel. "[The council is] continuing a pattern that does nothing to advance the goal of a peaceful, negotiated, two-state solution to this conflict," said the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.'s Geneva office, Warren W. Tichenor, in April 2008. Most of the single-country resolutions passed and four out of six special sessions called since 2006 have been to reprimand Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. The U.N.'s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, says Israel merits close scrutiny of its rights record, but he adds in a June 2008 interview with The Nation: "Limitations of resources, geopolitical pressures and blind spots help explain why some other situations involving serious human rights abuse are not addressed with comparable seriousness."