The UN needs a new, permanent human rights body if it is to prevent appalling suffering happening around the world, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said yesterday.
Speaking at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Annan said the 53-nation body is failing to stop human rights abuses, particularly in Sudan's conflict-ravaged Darfur region, and should be replaced by a council with greater authority.
"We have reached a point at which the commission's declining credibility has cast a shadow on the reputation of the UN system as a whole, and where piecemeal reforms will not be enough," Annan told delegates.
"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," Annan said.
As part of a package of reforms unveiled last month, the secretary-general proposed a human rights council to replace the present commission. The new council would be a permanent body, possibly on a par with the Security Council.
As a standing organ of the UN, the body would able to meet when necessary, addressing human rights violations as they arise. At present, the commission can only address issues during its annual six-week session.
"Today we have reached another moment when we must prove our commitment," Annan said. "A human rights council would offer a fresh start."
Council members would be elected directly by the General Assembly by a two-thirds majority and fulfill specific human rights criteria, according to the proposed reforms.
Under UN rules, members of the commission have been picked by regional groups. Current member states that have been criticized themselves for abuses include China, Cuba, Nepal, Russia, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Several other countries with poor human rights records have been on the commission over the years, and Libya has even held the chair.
A number of countries and campaigners have pushed for more stringent eligibility criteria for the top UN human rights watchdog. Two years ago, the US walked out of the commission's meeting to protest Cuba's re-election, which it called "an outrage."
"The new human rights council must be a society of the committed. It must be more accountable and more representative," the UN chief said. "Ultimately it would produce more effective assistance and protections, and that is the yardstick by which we should be measured."
Annan singled out human rights abuses in Darfur, saying that the situation there is a test for the UN.
Last year, the commission voted 50-1, with 2 abstentions, to express concern about the situation in Darfur, but stopped short of formal condemnation of Sudan. Formal censure by the commission involves no penalties, but at least draws attention to a country's record.
An estimated 180,000 people have died in the upheaval, mostly from disease and starvation, and about 2 million have been displaced since the conflict began in 2003.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
RSS