(Geneva, April 3, 2003) -- The United Nations Commission on Human Rights risks being turned into a "who's who" of abusive governments if several candidates for membership are elected later this month, Human Rights Watch warned today.
Of the 53 members of the commission, 24 will be elected for two-year terms by the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in late April. Several governments have already announced their candidacy."This year's election already looks like a who's who of the worst human rights abusers," said Rory Mungoven, global advocacy director of Human Rights Watch. "Governments that care about human rights have to act to prevent the Commission from being hijacked."
Human Rights Watch advocates minimum criteria for membership in the Commission, such as:
- ratification of the main human rights treaties;
- prompt reporting to U.N. human rights bodies;
- issuing open invitations to U.N. human rights investigators.
Countries should be disqualified from membership if they have been condemned by the Commission for serious human rights violations in the recent past, Human Rights Watch said.
Among the worrisome candidates:
- North Korea is bidding for one of six seats assigned to the Asian Group, despite being one of the most repressive and closed regimes in the world;
- Cuba is among the candidates agreed upon by the Latin American group, despite its severe recent crackdown on dissidents and its refusal to cooperate with numerous resolutions passed by the Commission on Human Rights;
- Russia is slated for one of two seats open for Eastern Europe, despite its refusal to admit U.N. experts to investigate abuses in Chechnya;
- Egypt is likely to be put forward by the African group, despite its abysmal record of torture and ill-treatment of detainees, demonstrated only last week in its detention of anti-war demonstrators.
Candidates are put forward by the different regional groups. Elections will be held for seven African, six Asian, six Latin American, three Western and two East European seats. In cases where the number of candidates equals the number of the vacant seats, the election will be a formality.
Human Rights Watch called on the five regional groups to remove from their endorsed lists any candidates who have poor human rights records and who fail to cooperate with the Commission. It urged governments with positive human rights credentials to stand for election and help to restore the integrity of the Commission.
Human Rights Watch also warned that many western governments currently serving on the Commission need to lift their own standards. For instance, the United States has not ratified all the key conventions and Australia has refused to cooperate with U.N. treaty bodies. Twenty-one members of the western group have issued standing invitations to U.N. human rights experts.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, in his report to the current session of the Commission on Human Rights, also stressed the need for a code of guidelines for membership of the Commission and a code of conduct for members while they serve on the Commission.
Several governments have said they support membership criteria and will apply standards of this kind in considering others for election. In the past three years, at least 45 states have issued standing invitations to the Commission's human rights monitors.
"No member of the Commission has a perfectly clean record on human rights. But they should at least show an openness to scrutiny," Mungoven said.
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