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Eyes of the World on UN Human Rights Council

By Angel Rodriguez
ACN Special Service

April 28, 2006

This coming May 9, elections will take place for the 47 countries to make up the recently approved UN Human Rights Council.

This specialized institution will replace the UN Human Rights Commission, which was a victim of politicization and selectivity imposed policies of the United States and its European Allies. The commission was a resounding failure which had no other alternative but to be eliminated. It will be an enormous responsibility for those countries voted onto the council, where they will have to prevent that body from being converted into a court which judges the underdeveloped nations of the South or a vehicle which imposes the "free market" political and social model of the North. This will require the constant vigilance by parliaments, governments and non-governmental organizations specializing on the issue of human rights worldwide, particularly since almost 150 governments will not be represented on the council.

To exercise this oversight role, favourable conditions have been created; the council is subordinated to the General Assembly, which retains the ability to evaluate smaller body's work and its decisions adopted. Up until now, the former commission was subordinate only to the Security Council, which greatly narrowed the ability of the human rights vehicle to conduct its work.

The tasks of the new institution will be arduous given the challenging times in which we live. The universal human rights panorama is currently discouraging in terms of nations providing guarantees to such rights as they relate to adequate food, quality education, healthcare, employment, housing, individual freedoms, and equality to participate in social life in a world in peace. There are urgent issues to be solved, ones which will be submitted to tests and whose approaches to addressing them will be define the body's credibility and determine its future.

Important matters are to be taken up before the eyes of the international community; issues such as the US occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, threats against Iran, a world network of prisons and "extraordinary renditions," an illegally occupied concentration camp in Guantanamo where physical and psychological torture have become the routine practices of US troops. None of these crucial problems ever came before the UN Human Rights Commission, where the most powerful unfailingly enjoyed total impunity. The new Human Rights Council represents the hope for change.

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