The good news is that, finally, the UN has replaced the badly reputed Human Rights Commission with the newly established Human Rights Council. The old body was a symbol of UN dysfunction as human rights violators gained seats in it and used their positions to prevent any censuring of their policies. Hopefully, it won’t work anymore. The bad news for Africa is that it is the only region without any contest for its allotted seats; a situation which the continent can’t afford to keep for long.
The new council was established by Resolution 60/251 of the UN General Assembly on March 15, 2006. According to the resolution, members of the new council should be elected directly and secretly by the 191 member states of the UN General Assembly with a majority of UN membership, which is 96 votes, in favor based on their human rights records; it is the first election to a UN political body by absolute majority of the General Assembly. The resolution also stipulates that members are not to be re-elected after two successive three-year terms and each year a certain number of members should be changed.
As for the composition of the council, it was agreed to be regionally distributed as such: 13 seats for African Group, 13 seats for Asian Group, six seats for Eastern European Group, eight seats for Latin American and Caribbean Group and seven seats for Western and others Group; a total of 47 seats.
Most countries announced their candidacies 30 days prior to the election date of May 9, and 4 out of the 5 regions had real contested elections by nominating more candidates than seats allowed per region, except for Africa, as countries with truly bad records didn’t dare to run, a list which includes: Sudan, Libya, Zimbabwe, Congo, Eriteria, Ethiopia and obviously Egypt as well.
It also includes Syria, Vietnam and others from other regions. Until the last minute, Kenya was one of 14 African states vying for the 13 seats, but it withdrew just before elections; a step which left Africa with just 13 candidates for its 13 seats, the sole region where there was no competition for seats. The Eastern Europe region witnessed the fiercest competition, with 14 candidates competing for just six seats. Russia received the most votes for the six Eastern European seats in the first round of voting, and also elected were Poland and the Czech Republic. Brazil received the most votes for the eight Latin American and Caribbean seats, which also included Cuba and Uruguay, while Germany received the largest number for the seven Western European seats, which included France and the UK.
Upon the disappointment of human rights advocates, Cuba, China, Russia, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia won seats in the council, but the encouraging part lies in the fact that the council’s higher standards did not allow the worst violators to run at all; the glaring examples stem from Africa.
Even the U.S., which opposed the creation of the council, did not seek a seat. But despite its ‘no’ vote, the U.S. has pledged to work cooperatively with other Member States to make the council as effective as possible. Other countries have tried and failed, such as Iran and Venezuela.
Regarding the number of years each member will serve on the council, the results of drawing lots showed that Algeria and 13 other nations will sit on the new council for one year, Pakistan and 14 other nations for two years and China and 17 other countries for three years. For African seats the results were as such: Algeria (1 year), Cameroon (3 years), Djibouti (3 years), Gabon (2 years), Ghana (2 years),Mali (2 years), Mauritius (3 years), Morocco (1 year), Nigeria (3 years),Senegal (3 years), South Africa (1 year), Tunisia (1 year) and Zambia (2 years).
Why didn’t Egypt and others run for seats? The answer lies partly in the mandate of the new council and partly in the current situation in Egypt. Regarding the mandate, it is to address all human rights situations, gross and systematic, as it is equipped with a new universal review mechanism that would review all countries’ human rights records periodically. Certainly, the quality of these reviews would be a measure of the council’s effectiveness; condemnatory reviews of abusers are hoped for and highly expected.
When considering countries elected to the council, this has forced them to make voluntary commitments on working with the council and promoting human rights both nationally and internationally. That embodied the commitment to invite UN independent experts to visit countries and to strengthen national institutions for Human Rights.
A situation that may create problems for Egypt, as its human rights record has been witnessing unprecedented public criticism since 2005. Egypt has also failed to respond to a request from the UN special rapporteur on torture for an invitation to visit the country, a request that has been outstanding since 1996, not to mention of course the recent ratification of the Emergency Law (Law No. 162 of 1958) by the Egyptian Parliament for two more years and above all the political violence and mass arbitrary arrests carried out lately by the Ministry of Interior on the streets of Cairo.
All of these actions would have been incompatible with a candidacy for the Human Rights Council in the universal organization where such national violations would be openly discussed on an international level. Egypt, and others, have made the right decision by choosing not to seek a seat in the new council, as they all know where they stand. The question is, how long will the key international players tolerate that from Egypt and how long will the Egyptian public opinion be controllable?
The Human Rights Council has been an added test for all, in particular to the new members and there will come a time when regional friends themselves, who are members in new council, will say to their neighbours “enough (Kefaya). We are looking forward to the Council’s first meeting in Geneva on June 19.
Nihal Fahmy is a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs.
