Human Rights Council

Human Rights are defined as basic freedoms or privileges to which all human beings are entitled. These rights include right to life, liberty, thought, expression and equality before the law etc. These rights are considered and accepted inalienable, indivisible and interdependent. However, such statements take us away from the realities of the world or rather reduce our perception of the rights as some normative values that are out there, to be “achieved” or accorded to certain human beings.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Human Rights have a huge dimension to them. To take one example, human rights without development and development without human rights is not possible. Consequently it has been realized that the implementation of human rights cannot be universal. For example espousing universality without, at the same time addressing underlying inequalities, will only exacerbate them and lead to violations of the very concept of universality and the consequent non-fulfillment of human rights.

Human rights are dependent inter alia on the socio-economic and political environment prevailing in a country. Furthermore the cultural and religious backgrounds of every country play an important role in the fulfillment of human rights obligations. The new “subjective implementation” has helped UN Commission for Human Rights (hereinafter: UNCHR) achieve most of its short-term and long-term goals.

Historically speaking, the response of the world to human rights has been reactive rather then proactive. From the oldest, such as the Magna Carta to the contemporary, e.g. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the cause of creation of Human Rights instruments have been violations of human rights. The Magna Carta came into existence after King James’s violation of fundamental rights of the people of Britain. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a result of gross violations in World War II. A recent example of such behavior is the serious breaches of human rights in Darfur. Concerns were expressed with regard to possible breaches of human rights, yet they were ignored.

UNCHR, the previous UN body responsible for UN’s human rights activities, had a broad mandate of promotion and protection of all human rights, be it, civil, political, economic, social or cultural. However, the UNCHR proved inadequate due to its lack of structural base coupled with scarcity of resources. Due to these factors UNHCR was unable to perform the duties assigned to it.

Consequently, in the “Millennium Declaration” broad outlines were drawn regarding the change in the UN’s Human Rights agenda. The changes included: technical assistance and support for national human rights institutions and their capacity building, crisis response, conflict prevention and a global programme designed to equip UN “inter-agency country teams” to work with member states to improve their human rights promotion and protection systems.

Mr. Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the UN, on numerous occasions pointed out the problems persisting in the UN human rights system. He noted its inability to cope with the changed agenda and calling it under “considerable strain”. Furthermore, the General Assembly recognized that the previous system lacked universality and legitimacy. In his statement to the General Assembly in March 2005, Mr. Annan recommended the creation of Human Rights Council (hereinafter: “HRC").

The HRC came into existence by a resolution adopted by the General Assembly resolution 60/251, on 15^th March 2006. The new Council consists of 47 members. The resolution stipulates that each member state is to be elected by a secret ballot in the General Assembly. Furthermore, each member state has to attain absolute majority in the General Assembly in order to get elected. This would possibly allow countries to block individual states with bad human rights record. It gives HRC the legitimacy its predecessor lacked. (One of the complaints about UNCHR was that it had member who were violators of Human Rights).

HRC is a subsidiary body of the General Assembly and therefore has a higher institutional standing as compared to its predecessor. The frequency of meetings has been increased from once a year (usually in spring) to thrice a year with minimum time duration of ten weeks. Furthermore, it will be able to hold emergency sessions whenever needed. The increase in time would allow the Council to focus on relatively more issues then in the past.

The resolution requires the Council to periodically assess the human right record of all member countries, starting with the countries represented in the HRC. This will be done by a “universal and periodic review” mechanism. It will also give recommendation to the General Assembly for further development of International Law on human rights. Another important aspect of the resolution is that it appreciates and promotes non-government organization for their efforts in relation to human rights.

The resolution insists that no country would be able to evade scrutiny and they will not be able to use the membership of the HRC to shield from criticism of rights abuses. In the past, reporting on human rights matters had problems, e.g. the reports were delayed and at times not submitted at all. Furthermore, many times there were duplications. The new system seeks to redress these issues.

According to the resolution, the distribution of the seats is based on the principle of “equitable geography”. There are thirteen member states from Africa and Asian each, eight member states from Latin America and Caribbean, six member states from Eastern Europe and seven member states from Western Europe and Others. This attempts to give proportional representation to all regions especially developing countries. Now more then half of the members are from Asian and African countries.

The resolution emphasizes that it is the responsibility of all the states to act in conformity with the UN Charter and to respect human rights without any discrimination. It stresses on the need for universality, elimination of double standards and any politicization. Furthermore it accentuates the principles of co-operation and genuine dialogue.

For the HRC, the most contentious issue is the lack of enforcement mechanism, a problem that plagued its predecessor as well. This was one of the reasons why U.S. was initially against its creation. Therefore, protection and promotion of human rights will depend on the attitude of member states and the respect of human rights. Positive attitude will only be achieved when a sense of responsibility and importance is developed. It could be said that HRC will, relatively, be in a better position to sound alarms, give guidance to individual member states e.g. technical assistance etc. but its success will inevitably depend on the co-operation of all the member states.

At the end of its First session in June, HRC decided to meet again for a special session and consider the report on violation of human rights in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories by a fact-finding mission. It is to be headed by Mr. John Dugrad. It is note-worthy that Mr. Dugard and his predecessors have been denied access to the Palestine in the past. Whether this time around Israel allows this mission to carry out its task, is still to be seen. However, Israel should be convinced to co-operate through sustained and unified international pressure. Nevertheless, it is a bold step for the Council to take in its first session.

On the other hand some human rights activists have raised concerns about the fact that the Council runs the risks of falling victim to the same confrontation that dampened the progress of its predecessor. It could be argued that the Council should take a more balanced approach, pointing out any violation by both the parties, Palestinians as well as Israelis.

It should be acknowledged that the change is slow and it will take time before the credibility of the Council is firmly established. After that is done, we could expect the Council to move at a more rapid pace for the realization of the objectives set out in the resolution.