Being a special rapporteur: a delicate balancing act

Abstract

Relying on the 14 years experience in various mandates in the UN since 1995 in the Human Rights Commission after 2006 at the Human Rights Council, the work of the special rapporteurs is reviewed in terms of its evolution, difficulties, limitations and repercussions in the respective societies and states targets of such mandates. The so-called special procedures or mechanisms at the UN human rights system are examined in the framework of contradictions present in the very political performance of states in human rights multilateral institutions. The analysis reaffirms the centrality of the victims as a key requirement for special rapporteurs to contribute to increase the visibility of human rights violations and the accountability for their perpetrators.

Keywords:

• human rights
• United Nations
• special rapporteurs
• Myanmar
• Commission on Human Rights
• Human Rights Council

Notes

Guilherme Lustosa da Cunha, from Brazil (1942–2010). He had his law degree at the University of São Paulo and was exiled in Paris, France during the military dictatorship in Brazil. After graduate studies in Paris he went to Geneva in the 1970s where he joined the International Commission of Jurists and immediately after the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), where for 25 years he had been an exemplary international diplomat, promoting human rights until the end, admired and beloved by colleagues and friends all over the world.

Mark Mazover, ‘The Strange Triumph of Human Rights’, The Historical Journal 47, no. 2 (2004): 379–98.

Report of the First Session E/259( 1947), paras 21 and 22; cit. Tom Farer, ‘The United Nations and Human Rights: More Than a Whimper Less Than a Roar’, Human Rights Quarterly, no. 9 (1987): 555, note 27.

Established by Comm.Res.20 (XXXVI), 29 February1980, E/CN.4/RES/1980/20; cit. Jeroen Gutter, ‘Special Procedures and the Human Rights Council: Achievements and Challenges Ahead’, Human Rights Law Review 7, no. 1 (2007): 98, note 26.

Hurst Hannun, ‘Reforming the Special Procedures and Mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights’, Human Rights Law Review 7, no. 1 (2007): 98.

See Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Special Procedures assumed by the Human Rights Council, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/special/countries.htm; http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/special/themes.htm (accessed 30 October 2010).

For an innovative and comprehensive analysis of the thematic and country special rapporteurs mandates see Ted Piccone, Catalysts for Rights. The Unique Contribution of the UN's Independent Experts on Human Rights, Final Report of the Brookings Research Project on Strengthening UN Special Procedures (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, October 2010), 90, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2010/10_human_rights_piccone/10_human_rights_piccone.pdf (accessed 19 December 2010).

See his instigating autobiography, Stéphane Hessel, Danse avec Le Siècle (Paris: Seuil, 1997), passim.

Gérard de Nerval, Les Filles Du Feu, Les Chimères, Sonnets, Manuscrits (Paris: GF-Flammarion, 1994), 317. See also Stéphane Hessel, Ô Ma Mémoire, la poésie, ma necessite (Paris: Seuil, 2006), 144.

The Brazilian diplomat who contacted me was minister Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, at present secretary-general for the Brazilian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Brasilia.

Keynote speech by Bacre Waly Ndiaye, director, Human Rights Council and Treaties Division, at the Seminar ‘Ways to Ensure an Effective UN Human Rights Council’, Soul, 20 November 2009, 6.

Gutter, ‘Special Procedures and the Human Rights Council’, 107.

Joanna Irene Naples-Mitchel, ‘Defining Rights in Real Time: The UN Special Procedures’ Contribution to the International Human Rights System' (essay presented to The Committee on Degrees in Social Studies, Bachelor of Arts, Harvard College, March 210), 7, note 9.

Jean-Claude Bunhrer and Claude B. Levenson, Sergio Vieira de Mello, un espoir foudroyé (Paris: Mille et er une nuits, 2004), 84–5.

Gutter, ‘Special Procedures and the Human Rights Council’, 101.

Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, World Report on Violence Against Children (published in the UN Secretary-General Study on Violence Against Children, 2006, p. 363). See http://www.crin.org/docs/UNVAC_World_Report_on_Violence_against_Children.pdf (accessed 19 December 2010).

Opening statement by Ms Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to the Human Rights Council 13th Session, 27 January 2010, http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=9853&LangID=e (accessed 30 October 2010).

D.G. Tendulkar, Mahatma, Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Vol.8 (Bombay: Vithalbai K. Jhaveri, 1951), 89; cit. Mary King, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The Power of Non-violent Action (Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1999), 304.