On May 9, the UN General Assembly elected members from 47 nations to oversee the Human Rights Council. The newly created council replaced the Human Rights Commission, and its first meeting took place on June 19 in Geneva.
International human rights groups are very concerned about whether the council will be able to carry out its tasks free from political interference or manipulation by states known to be human rights abusers.
Prior to the council elections, incidents involving certain countries opposed to seeing rights abusers on the council underscored what a political hot potato the new body is. While the US announced it would boycott the council elections, Human Rights Watch criticized the General Assembly's move to elect China, Cuba, Russia, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia and Iran to the council.
The US believed that the membership criteria for the council were too lax and failed to screen out rights abusers, since the backing of only half of the 191 UN member states is needed to join the council. The US wanted to raise the bar by requiring council applicants to win the support of two-thirds of the UN's membership.
It was truly a pity that other UN members ignored the US' recommendation. The result was that 22 of the 47 countries elected to the council are listed by Freedom House as "not free" or "partly free" nations.
Among the "not free" are China, Algeria, Tunisia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Cameroon and Cuba. "Partly free" members include Morocco, Nigeria, Zambia, Bangladesh, Jordan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Ecuador and Guatemala.
So close to one-half of the council members are regarded by international human rights groups as rights abusers. Whether the council can carry out its mandate and avoid manipulation or interference by rights-abusing nations will determine its success or failure in the eyes of the international community.
Chen Lung-chu is chairman of the New Century Foundation and director of the Taiwan United Nations Alliance.
Translated by Lin Ya-ti
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