The United Nations is at it again. The bureaucracy that looked the other way as Saddam and his puppets skimmed billions of dollars off of the Oil-for-Food program is now trying its hand at internal reform of one of its primary human rights entities. One of the enduring lessons of the past few years is that letting the U.N. bureaucrats reform themselves from within is about as successful as letting the inmates run the asylum.
The Commission on Human Rights at the United Nations has been under fire for years for its notoriously hypocritical membership. Some of the worst human rights violators – including Cuba, Sudan, China and, to a lesser extent, countries like Saudi Arabia – have been allowed to sit on a commission that supposedly decides how best to handle human rights violations worldwide. The Sudanese government carries serious charges of arming a group of thugs in Sudan and allowing them to kill and displace millions of people, yet Sudan remains on the Human Rights Commission until at least 2007. Imagine letting the defendant in a murder trial sit on the very jury that decides his fate. If you add a few sympathizers, it becomes less and less likely that Sudan will ever be fully held accountable.
It appeared admirable that the United Nations decided recently to replace the Commission on Human Rights with a Human Rights Council in an attempt to reform this incredibly dysfunctional body. The recent reform proposal, however, is not promising. I would say that the latest proposal is dangerous. The latest proposal guarantees a fixed number of seats on the Human Rights Council to each designated geographic area.
I hope you can already see the problem here. Nations that value human rights tend to be concentrated in certain areas of the globe. Europe and North America immediately spring to mind, although there are exceptions to this rule. However, the two smallest numbers of allocations are to these very areas with the strongest concentrations of liberal democracies.
Some of the larger seat allocations are given to areas with a weak record on human rights, Africa and Asia. Do I think that those continents should be represented? Definitely. However, Africa doesn’t even have enough liberal democracies to fill its seats on the Human Rights Council, and Asia has only 12 liberal democracies out of 54 total nations. The latest proposal actually works to guarantee that countries with poor human rights records will gain membership on the Council.
What do I personally think should be the basis for a new, efficient Human Rights Council? I think that having over 40 members, as the latest proposal suggests, is very ambitious. I think the number of members on this Human Rights Council should be around 20. I also think that all geographic areas should be represented, but those areas that lack a fundamental regard for human rights should not be heavily represented. If we want Africa and Asia to have a high membership on the Human Rights Council, we should first help them qualify for membership by pressing for democratic reforms.
I believe that one of the most fundamental human rights we possess is the right to make our own decisions about who our leaders are and how our government is structured. Without voting rights, we endanger many of our other rights, such as freedom of speech. There’s no coincidence that free speech is strongly discouraged or illegal in countries without free, democratic elections.
To this end, we should populate the majority of the seats on this Human Rights Council with nations that hold democratic elections that can be verified by outside sources. Fidel Castro cannot rationally claim that he has had the support of his people since 1959. Venezuela would never qualify because of its inability to hold an election without rampant intimidation and voter fraud, no matter what Kook of the Month Jimmy Carter claims.
Countries that deny certain groups, such as women, the right to vote would be eliminated. Well, there goes Saudi Arabia and probably much of the Middle East, not to mention much of Africa and Asia.
There is a pretty simple principle underlying this entire argument. The United Nations, as a whole, should not be confined to democracies and representative governments. Inclusion of dictatorships and tyrannical governments is necessary if we ever hope to move those nations to democracy. However, there must be a minimum standard these nations have to meet in order to wield significant power within the United Nations. That standard is a basic respect for human rights.The United Nations, as a whole, is in desperate need of fundamental reform and accountability. Kofi Annan is where the problem begins. That is where fundamental reform should start. Only then can we solve the other problems that have resulted from his leadership, such as the current mess at the Commission on Human Rights.
Reed Hanson is a junior electrical engineering major. He may be reached at [email protected].
