The United Nations Human Rights Council: A U.S. Foreign Policy Dilemma

Abstract

This summary captures the animated dialogue that marked the roundtable that was held in New York City in May 2008. The participants focused on comparing the Human Rights Council with its much criticized predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights. A checkered picture emerged from the discussion.

Notes

In Larger Freedom: Toward Development, Security, and Human Rights for All—Report of the Secretary-General, A/59/2005, March 21, 2005, para. 182.

Press Conference by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, February 28, 2007.

According to Article 7 the principal organs of the UN are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat. Subsidiary organs can be established, but by inference they would be secondary and subordinate.

Articles 1(3), 13(1)(b), 55(c), 62(2), 68, 73, 76.

The ethos of universalism is a core value of American political philosophy. Rights are integral to each individual; they are not conditional. As The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

The Nonaligned Movement was founded by states seeking to join together to avoid formal alliances with the major powers, to resist imperialism and foreign intrusion, and to ensure respect for their sovereignty. In terms of human rights, NAM stresses that cultural diversity must be respected. NAM currently has 118 members.

Global South, also known as the third world, refers to less developed and developing states. It is not a formal organization or alliance but a political identity. Many members of NAM locate themselves as being part of the Global South.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights were adopted by the General Assembly in 1966 and came into force in 1976.

Samuel Huntington coined this expression in a 1993 article in Foreign Affairs. He has since expanded on his argument: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York, 1996).

The Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict—Final Report (1997), 136.

NATO's attack on Serbian forces to stop violence against ethnic Albanian populations led to an international inquiry. The commission, implicitly reflecting attitudes regarding the significance of human rights, concluded that the intervention was “illegal but legitimate.” The Independent Commission on Kosovo, Kosovo Report: Conflict, International Responses, Lessons Learned (Oxford, 2000), 4.

The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) first formulated the concept. See The Responsibility to Protect, Volumes I and II (Ottawa: ICISS, 2001), available at: http://www.iciss.ca/. The concept is now featured by the Global Center on the Responsibility to Protect: http://www.globalcentrer2p.org/

A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility—Report of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, A/59/565, December 2, 2004, para. 285.

In Larger Freedom, 2005, para. 183.

A complete calendar of Universal Periodic Reviews and other information is available through the portal established by the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/Pages/UPRMain.aspx

A/HRC/S-2/1.

Ms. Najat Al-Hajjiji of Libya is the president and Mr. Resfel Pino Alvarez of Cuba is vice chairman-rapporteur of the committee to organize the Durban Review Conference in 2009.

These were first declared in his State of the Union Address, January 6, 1941.

As mentioned earlier, the president of the Preparatory Committee is Libyan and the vice chairman-rapporteur is Cuban. Remarks made to the committee on June 17, 2008, although in the vernacular of diplomats, are telling. Note that Israel is not directly specified; however, the plight of “foreign occupation” is emphasized, and references to human rights abuses in Muslim societies are construed as religious intolerance. Those statements contrast with those of the representative from the United Kingdom who reflects on the 2001 Durban conference and seeks to have anti-Semitism censured and the Holocaust recognized by the 2009 Review Conference and of UN Watch that see the conference as becoming “Durban II.” A summary of these comments is available at http://www.unog.ch/unog/website/news_media.nsf/(httpNewsByYear_en)/3E1B09495F94A30FC125746B00343CE5?OpenDocument

Quoted in “United States: A Caterpillar in Lipstick? The UN's Human Rights Council,” The Economist, vol. 378, no. 8467 (March 4, 2006).

Ambassador John R. Bolton, Explanation of Vote on the Human Rights Council Draft Resolution in the General Assembly, March 15, 2006.

Quoted in “U.S. Attacks UN Human Rights Council,” Associated Press, November 17, 2007.

Bolton, Explanation of Vote on the Human Rights Council Draft Resolution, March 15, 2006.

National Committee on American Foreign Policy, UN–U.S. Relations 2007: The Role of the United States in the UN, Roundtable Report (New York City, May 7, 2007), 13–17.

Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2007, available at: http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=15 & year=2007