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Subject: US Seeks Seat on the UN Human Rights Council
Posted by: Mith
- [2894309] Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 16:47
Christian Science MonitorSecretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced in a statement Tuesday the reversal of Bush's policy of remaining outside the council as a way of protesting its makeup and work. "With others, we will engage in the work of improving the UN human rights system," Secretary Clinton said, with the goal of "advancing the vision of the UN declaration on Human Rights."
The administration's decision set off the latest installment of a debate in foreign-policy circles over whether the world's most egregious rights abusers are best confronted from within or outside the international human rights tent embodied by the council.
The 47-country council is tasked with defending international rights, but even some of its members concede the Geneva-based body spends too much time criticizing Israel and focusing on issues such as Islamophobia in Western countries. The council's predecessor, the UN Human Rights Commission, was branded as a club for dictators and scuttled in 2006. The current council is dominated by countries from Africa and Asia that have shielded human rights violators such as Sudan and Zimbabwe from scrutiny.
The Bush administration concluded that US membership would only grant legitimacy to the council, and stayed outside when it was created in 2006. The US initially accepted observer status but then decided even that was too much. |
| 1 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 16:54
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Some info on the UNHRC (from Wikipedia):The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations System. The UNHRC is the successor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (CHR), and is a subsidiary body of the United Nations General Assembly. Based in Geneva, the UNHRC's main purpose is to make recommendations to the General Assembly about situations in which human rights are violated.[1] The UNHRC has no authority except to make recommendations to the General Assembly. The General Assembly has no authority except to advise the Security Council.
The General Assembly established the UNHRC by adopting a resolution (A/RES/60/251) on 15 March 2006. The United States, the Marshall Islands, Palau, and Israel voted against the resolution. The United States said the UNHRC did not have adequate provision to keep states which abused human rights from being on the Council. Belarus, Iran, and Venezuela abstained from voting. Venezuela said that the resolution had some troubling provisions, including the implicit permission to states to intervene in the internal affairs of other states.[2]
On 18 June 2007, one year after holding its first meeting, the UNHRC adopted its Institution-building package, which provides elements to guide it in its future work. Among the elements was the Universal Periodic Review. The Review will assess the human rights situations in all 192 UN Member States. Another element is an Advisory Committee, which serves as the UNHRC’s think tank, and provides it with expertise and advice on thematic human rights issues, that is, issues which pertain to all parts of the world. Another element is a Complaints Procedure, which allows individuals and organizations to bring complaints about human rights violations to the attention of the Council.
The UNHRC works closely with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and engages the United Nations' Special Procedures.
The members of the General Assembly elect the members who occupy the UNHRC's forty-seven seats. The term of each seat is three years, and no member may occupy a seat for more than two consecutive terms. The seats 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.
The resolution establishing the UNHRC states that "members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights." The General Assembly may, by a vote of two-thirds of its members, suspend the rights and privileges of a member if that member has persistently committed gross and systematic violations of human rights.
General Assembly Resolution 60/251 (PDF)
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| 2 | Boxman
ID: 571114225
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 17:49
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Yeah why not. I don't see the harm. I really don't see the help either given that the UN let numerous genocides in Africa fly under their radar.
What does this statement mean? members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.
Within their own borders?
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| 3 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 18:15
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Within their own borders?
I think thats right.
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| 4 | Boxman
ID: 571114225
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 18:48
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Then it seems like a massive amount of window dressing doesn't it?
The real crisees occur when we all know 500k people in Rwanda get slaughtered but we stand idly by as a planet and allow it to happen.
What the UN really needs is an Anti-Genocide Tree House Club with long sharp teeth and brass knuckles so that the United States does not act as the world's policemen and so that nations know genocide will not be tolerated.
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| 6 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 19:01
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That's an interesting position from you, given that it's off-the-deep-end of anti American conservatism.
I applaud you for keep your horizons broad.
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| 7 | Boxman
ID: 571114225
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 19:24
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That's an interesting position from you, given that it's off-the-deep-end of anti American conservatism.
I have no interest in nation building by the United States. In fact, I want us home from Afghanistan by yesterday. Iraq too. I understand why we went into both places but enough is enough now. We aren't taking the core reason of the Afghanistan invasion seriously (killing Bin Laden and his cronies) and the Iraqis have wanted us out and are displaying decent enough behavior towards themselves for a while now.
The only alternative for the US to not be the policemen is for there to be an actual effective global coalition. Easier said than done, but that is what's needed.
What should happen when genocide breaks out should be similar to a UFC fight. Yeah the two sides want to obliterate each other, but when one side takes it too far (i.e. the point of extinction of people just because they belong to a certain race) then the referee has got to get in there and stop the fight.
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| 8 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 19:35
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The only alternative for the US to not be the policemen is for there to be an actual effective global coalition. Easier said than done, but that is what's needed.
I'm really not sure to what extent you realize your opinion would be considered atrocious by a vast majority of American conservatives. But so you know I wasn't being entirely snarky in post 6, but I do admit to being a touch frustrated by it.
You see if Tree had written that post, Baldwin's response would be to chide his utter, utter stupidity and dismiss him as the idiot tool of creeping globalism. Since you wrote it, he probably just won't respond.
The problem with a UNHRC "with teeth" as you say is that they might find themselves a reason to use their teeth against nations which employ such human rights abuses as, for example, water boarding prisoners or the use of white phosphorus on the battlefield.
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