Historic opening of the Human Rights Council: time to make the UN matter to human rights victims
16 June 2006 12:00 am

On Monday, 19 June, a historic moment will take place as the newly created United Nations Human Rights Council (Council) convenes its first-ever session in Geneva, Switzerland, until 30 June. The Council has been created to overcome the flaws of the sixty-year old Commission on Human Rights, such as the inclusion of gross human rights violators in its membership to shield themselves and their allies from scrutiny.On Monday, 19 June, a historic moment will take place as the newly created United Nations Human Rights Council (Council) convenes its first-ever session in Geneva, Switzerland, until 30 June. The Council has been created to overcome the flaws of the sixty-year old Commission on Human Rights, such as the inclusion of gross human rights violators in its membership to shield themselves and their allies from scrutiny.

Yet, the key question remains—will the Council be more relevant to human rights victims around the world and take effective measures to remedy situations of human rights violations?

The Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), a regional human rights organisation based in Bangkok, submitted its position paper1 to the inaugural members of the Council, highlighting five priority areas that the Council must address to make its work effective.

“Asia remains a region with some of the worst human rights violators where disappearances, extrajudicial killings and persecution of human rights defenders are daily occurrences”, said Anselmo Lee, Executive Director of FORUM-ASIA.

He further added, “When national systems fail to deliver justice, human rights victims only have the international human rights system to turn to. It is therefore vital that we seize this opportunity to ensure that the Council will demonstrate in practice that it can truly make a difference on the ground”.

FORUM-ASIA’s position paper notes that this can be accomplished only if the Council responds in a timely and effective manner when critical human rights situations arise, allows non-governmental organisations (NGOs) based outside of Geneva to participate in the deliberations of its work with sufficient access to information, and there are concrete follow-up actions on the ground.

The ten-page paper detailed specific recommendations for the mechanisms of the Council, which are to be finalised within a year. Despite this historic window of opportunity to create a means for delivering justice to human rights victims worldwide, FORUM-ASIA expressed its concern regarding the regressive actions by the Asian governments.

“Many Asian governments continue to take part in a coalition called the “Like Minded Group”, which is a club of countries with poor human rights records working collectively to undermine the international human rights protection and monitoring mechanisms”, said Lee.

The current members of this group include Algeria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bhutan, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. Out of these 19 countries, 12 are from Asian governments, including the eight Asian countries that were recently elected as the first members of the Human Rights Council—Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines and Sri Lanka.

Lee explained that “the members of the Council are supposed to uphold the highest standards of human rights. Yet, these eight Asian members continue to take part in this obstructionist group, blocking NGOs from participating fully and trying to make the Council as weak as they can”.

The position paper highlighted some of the recent positions expressed by the Like-Minded Group, reminding all members that the Council is intended to be “results-oriented”, which means that it must ensure better promotion and protection of human rights for all.

Read full text of FA's position paper (.pdf, 100kb, 10pp.)

For more information, please contact Ms. Momoko Nomura, UN Advocacy Programme officer or at +66 (0)2 391 8801, ext. 602