UN Human Rights Commission Begins Year Without U.S.

by Gustavo Capdevila

Washington's absence will be noted in debates in which it traditionally takes the role of accuser, like the cases of China, Chechnya and Cuba. However, its absence will especially stand out with respect to its habitual role as Israel's defender.

The United States was voted off the 53-member Human Rights Commission in a secret ballot held May 10, 2001 in the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in New York.

The members of the Geneva-based Commission are elected by ECOSOC to three-year terms, with the number of seats allocated proportionally by region: 15 for Africa, 12 for Asia, five for eastern Europe, 11 for Latin America and the Caribbean and 10 for western Europe and other countries.

For one thing, Washington will miss the debate on the situation in Afghanistan, discussed since 1984 by the Commission, which issued alarming resolutions on that country's human rights record in the last few sessions.

The Commission had referred to the gravity of the situation in Afghanistan, but delays were seen in the implementation of international policies, said the current chairman, Argentine representative Leandro Despouy.

UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Kamal Hossain of Bangladesh, has already demanded that the U.S.-led military forces involved in the war against terrorism respect international humanitarian law.

Hossain called for investigations into a massacre of prisoners belonging to Afghanistan's Taliban movement in Masar-i-Sharif, reportedly the result of a crackdown on a prison riot, and denounced by human rights groups.

In the case of Afghanistan and other questions of particular interest to Washington in the Commission, the United States will likely depend on the countries of western Europe, which are its allies in the international fight against terrorism and in the Commission's bloc of Western nations.

But paradoxically, it was the Europeans who dislodged the United States from the Commission, to which it will return in 2003.

Western Europe voted for Sweden instead of the United States in the ECOSOC meeting that designated the new members of the Commission. In the May vote, 14 countries were chosen to fill the seats left vacant by states whose mandates had come to an end.

Three out of four candidates were to be chosen for the group of western Europe and other states. The United States took only 29 votes, compared to France's 52, Austria's 41 and Sweden's 32.

The nations that were newly admitted or reelected for the other regions were Armenia, Bahrain, Chile, Croatia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, South Korea, Sudan, Togo and Uganda.

Sources close to the Commission said western Europe wanted to teach Washington a lesson for its condescending, isolationist behavior in the Commission and other international fora.

The text of the resolution declared that it was unacceptable that 826 million people, mainly women and children in the developing world, were unable to meet their minimal dietary needs.

The U.S. delegation objected to several of the statements contained in the declaration, such as one that recognized the right of individuals to receive food directly from governments.

That attitude came on top of a clash in the Commission with French President Jacques Chirac and the United States' abrupt withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement on cutting emissions of gases that cause global warming.

All of that created an adverse attitude towards the United States, said Despouy, who chairs the Commission until the next session, scheduled for Mar. 18 to Apr. 26.

Despouy said that in the coming session, to be chaired by Polish delegate Krzysztof Jakubowski, it was likely that no resolution condemning China for rights violations would be presented, now that the United States is not on the Commission.

Washington has traditionally taken the lead in sponsoring resolutions against China, which that country systematically blocks by filing a "no action motion," a controversial procedural loophole.

The absence of the United States and Russia's closer ties with the West make it likely that a resolution on human rights violations in Chechnya will face the same fate, since it was Washington that sponsored the resolutions censuring Moscow.

On the other hand, things will become more complicated for Israel, which is not represented on the Commission and depends on U.S. support to avoid unanimously approved condemnations sponsored by the Arab nations.

Washington's presence on the Commission is also indispensable for obtaining an alternative voting procedure, the nominal vote, in resolutions against Israel, which allows the identification of the position adopted by each government.

In the case of a nominal vote, the names of the members as well as their votes are recorded in the stenographic record of the sitting.

In the Commission's upcoming session, only the European Union will be able to request a nominal vote, said Despouy.

However, prior agreement between Brussels and Tel Aviv would be required -- something that is not likely, because the Europeans generally take a more critical attitude towards Israel than the United States.