How the U.N. Human Rights Council Ends Up With So Many Human Rights Abusers

A lot of it comes down to politics.

By
8

As the U.N. Human Rights Council wrapped up its session this week, it passed 13 resolutions dealing with human rights abuses in varying regions of the world: Eritrea (for war crimes in the Ethiopian region of Tigray), Belarus (for ongoing civil society repression), Myanmar (for the ongoing genocide of Rohingya Muslims), and others.

What’s notable about the resolution on Eritrea is that Eritrea is actually a member of the UNHRC. Should an organization with a mission “to work for the protection of all human rights for all people; to help empower people to realize their rights; and to assist those responsible for upholding such rights in ensuring that they are implemented” welcome as members the very states carrying out abuses?

Such cognitive dissonance leads many to question the value of a governing body on human rights. Along with Eritrea, Venezuela, Somalia, Russia, and China are current members of the council. It’s a problem that has plagued the council for years, and even a reorganization (from commission to council) undertaken by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2006 has done little to fix the problem.

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights was originally founded in 1946, and produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in its first meeting in 1947. Eleanor Roosevelt was the United States delegate to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), and served as the first chairperson of the commission. For its first two decades, the commission primarily worked to promote human rights through treaties, including the 1951 conference on refugees and stateless persons and the 1967 Protocol, which removed a geographic restriction on the 1951 treaty. 

But criticism mounted early in the new millennium: Sudan gained a seat on the commission in 2003, the same year that—thanks to a rotating regional schedule—Libya was appointed chair of the commission. 

In a 2005 address to the commission, Secretary-General Kofi Annan proclaimed the “commission’s ability to perform its tasks has been overtaken by new needs, and undermined by the politicization of its sessions and the selectivity of its work. We have reached a point at which the commission’s declining credibility has cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole, and where piecemeal reforms will not be enough.” 

Annan, who cited the Rwandan genocide of 2004 and the “appalling suffering” in the then-ongoing conflict in Darfur, Sudan, recommended the dissolution of the commission, and creation of the Human Rights Council, which he called “a society of the committed,” one that would be “more accountable and more representative.” 

In 2006, the U.N. General Assembly voted to create the U.N. Human Rights Council, with 170 member states voting in favor. Three abstained: Belarus, Iran, and Venezuela. Four voted against the creation of the council, for varying reasons: The United States, Israel, Palau, and Marshall Islands. In his objections, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton clarified that the council did not go far enough for American standards. He did not want the council to “settle for good enough, for a compromise, for merely the best we could do.” 

Functionally, the differences between the commission and council have not saved the council from the same deficiencies as its predecessor. 

In order to be elected, states commit themselves to upholding human rights, as defined in the UDHR. This is typically through a written memo to the general assembly. The council also created the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a process in which all U.N. states’ human rights records are reviewed. Nominally, the UPR is “designed to ensure equal treatment for every country when their human rights situations are assessed.” The 47 seats on the council  are elected by the 193 member U.N. General Assembly, requiring a majority vote. 

Seats on the UNHRC are distributed geographically, intended to be equitable based on world population. Seats are distributed thus: 

African states: 13 seats

Asia-Pacific states: 13 seats

Latin American and Caribbean states: eight seats

Western European and other states: seven seats

Eastern European states: six seats

While any U.N. member state can submit its name for an empty seat, the behind-the-scenes process tends to be more complicated. Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, explained in an interview with The Dispatch: “In reality, they agree amongst themselves. So within the regional groups, they try to prevent competition so that there’ll be the same number of candidates for the same number of positions.” 

This means, if there are four open seats for Latin America and the Caribbean, the regional states typically decide among themselves which four members will run.  The U.N. General Assembly vote is effectively a rubber stamp. Sometimes this is challenged, though rarely, Neuer explains, because regional actors often dissuade additional candidates from stepping forward. 

Two seats were open for Latin American and Caribbean states in the 2019 vote to determine three-year terms starting in 2020. Brazil and Venezuela were initially the only two to put themselves forward. Then just months before the vote, Costa Rica directly challenged Venezuela, citing a U.N. report on “grave rights violations.” Venezuela and Brazil won the election, despite the report and Costa Rica’s attempt to challenge. 

Paul Gordon Lauren, emeritus professor at the University of Montana and internationally recognized scholar of international law and human rights, told The Dispatch: “Politics is, for better or worse, an integral part of people living with other people.” He continued: “For all the despair we might have over what the Human Rights Council or its predecessor have not been able to accomplish … you have to remember that progress has also been made on other fronts. The U.N. has sent in peacekeepers to protect human rights, they’ve sent investigation teams. And that’s also a result of politics.” 

Politics also plays a role in the United States’ involvement with the UNHRC. The United States did not seek membership on the council upon its creation in 2006. Since then, U.S. engagement has fallen on partisan lines: the Bush administration declined, the Obama administration joined, the Trump administration withdrew, and now the Biden administration is engaging.  

When the U.S. withdrew in the middle of a three-year term in 2018, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley accused the council of being “a cesspool of political bias” that “makes a mockery of human rights” and displays “unending hostility towards Israel.” 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced in February that the U.S. would once again engage with the UNHRC. 

“We recognize that the Human Rights Council is a flawed body, in need of reform to its agenda, membership, and focus, including its disproportionate focus on Israel,” Blinken said. “However, our withdrawal in June 2018 did nothing to encourage meaningful change, but instead created a vacuum of U.S. leadership, which countries with authoritarian agendas have used to their advantage.” The U.S. is currently an “observer,” which means they can speak and submit resolutions (like all members of the UNGA), but do not have voting power.

Notably, despite the decision to engage and the acknowledgement of a disproportionate focus on Israel, the United States did not send a representative to the emergency session in May. The session was primarily focused on Israeli-Hamas conflict, and the U.S. was not present to voice any opinion on the creation of an International Commission of Inquiry on Israel.

“Why an administration that has advocated the utility and importance of engagement, and which could have called out the bias of the council,” failed to attend frustrated Neuer. 

The administration has yet to announce whether it intends to run for a seat on the UNHRC. 

Does U.S. engagement give legitimacy to a broken system? “It need not,” Neuer argued. If the United States were to engage the full weight of their diplomatic leadership, it has the opportunity to effect genuine change. 

“Being gone doesn’t make it better,” Neuer said. Instead, since the UNHRC is not disappearing anytime soon, Neuer says democracies should “fight to stand up for human rights, basic freedoms, and democracy,” as well as “fight dictatorships and speak forthrightly.” 

“It is essential not to throw up your hands in complete despair,” Lauren said.
If people did that, there would be no advancement in human rights.”  For most of human history, he explained, slavery, torture, abuse, and authoritarianism were common. There was no form of accountability, no redress for victims. Today, victims of atrocity have some options, however imperfect. Lauren called it a “transformation from being an object of international pity, to being a subject of international law.” At least today, for all the faults of the UNHRC, Lauren told The Dispatch, “human rights are openly discussed and violations can be addressed, and in some cases leaders responsible can be held accountable.”

8
By
Comments (8)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Avatar photo
    David Chen

    UNHRC is like an organization designed by someone who watches She-Ra but populated by the factions of Warhammer 40k. If the UNHRC took issue with something I'm doing, my hunch is that I'm doing something right.

    Collapse
  2. Avatar photo
    Henry Clemens

    As a retired Am. diplomat with considerable UN experience, I am all too familiar with the process by which members of the Human Rights Council (or the Security Council) are chosen, and the frequently justified Am. objections. Sometimes we mount opposition candidates to an especially outrageous regionally-blessed candidate, and if our objections are well-founded, if we quietly gather allies, and our diplomatic efforts are well coordinated and professional (not tub-thumping domestically targeted speeches by the Nikki Haleys of this world who are justifiably seen as being more out for themselves than in serving the interests of serious diplomacy), we succeed, but it is never easy.

    And our objections are not automatically supported, even by such as the UK or other Europeans, in great part because they detect an inappropriate degree of hypocrisy in our insistence that, eg., Israel is the object of egregiously unfair attacks — which is true enough, but then they know that even when Israel is a serious offender, we do our best to block any criticism.

    And our allies are perhaps more willing to deal with a system that is unavoidably political, and try to work quietly to gain at the margin, something that the John Boltons of this world seem to disdain. Americans might remember that the same political factors, mutatis mutandis, affect our own system from time to time. I, at least, am old enough to remember James Eastland, an outrageously racist senator from Mississippi, who was elected to the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee and President Pro Tem of the Senate. But his record was overlooked in the interests of seniority and political reciprocity— essentially the same dynamic that governs regional-group selection in the UN context. But Sen. Eastland was, in current thinking, long ago — and American, which is a special case and not at all analogous to an un-American and compromised organization like the UN.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      rlritt

      Very interesting.

      Collapse
  3. Avatar photo
    Bill Nelson

    “...the commission's declining credibility has cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole...”
    The UN is an organization in which each nation is the same as any other. That the UN was an organization which could promote human rights was a progressive fallacy that some believe in. China is going to do whatever they wish.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      David Chen

      Conceptually, the UN sounds dumber and dumber the older I get.

      Collapse
  4. Avatar photo
    Nick H

    Everyone advising that the US should remain involved with the UNHRC, saying that we shouldn't be throwing up our hands in despair, seems to think that the UNHRC is the only path for advancements in human rights, and that if we aren't part of the council then there's no other solutions to be found. That's nonsense. There's nothing magical about the UNHRC, and until it's massively reformed it does more harm than help. It would be better for the US to work with other like minded countries and form a new organization, outside of the auspices of the UN, to further the cause of human rights.

    Collapse
  5. Avatar photo
    Victor Clairmont

    It is not because of the UN or the UNHRC that victims of today have recourse at all. These institutions and organizations can only exist because of one prime reason:

    That the United States polices the majority of the world, keeps 80% of the high sea’s free, and since World War II has had the legitimate role of world peacekeeper put upon us that our great grandparents accepted.

    It is not the UN Russia fears if they go to far into the Baltic’s, it NATO with America as the tip of the spear.

    It is not the UN or the UNHRC that China hesitates on for invading Taiwan, it’s the reaction of America.

    Any recourse many poor people have appealing to these institutions, is simply because there is one dominant military force in the world still, America.

    And while it may be a good idea to use such institutions so that we have a “voice” in them, the reality is more often than not, that these institutions are useless against strong despotic tyrants like Russia or China.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      El Duderino

      As Al Capone said, You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.

      Collapse