The US government is still blocking adoption of the draft resolution to establish the Human Rights Council put forward by the president of the UN General Assembly which promises to be more effective at protecting human rights than the existing Commission on Human Rights
According to sources within the UN, a vote or other action on the draft could take place as early as this week. Diplomats in New York have made intense efforts to find ways to enable the US to join the consensus for adopting the draft resolution. The US has remained resolute in its demands for changes to the text.
US ambassador the UN, John Bolton claims that he wants to make "improvements" to the text for the new Council. Bolton has announced that the US wants to renegotiate the draft resolution, failing which he will call for a vote on the resolution as it stands and vote against it. Any further negotiations on the resolution would take us back many months.
This is likely to lead to further weakening of the text, which has already been diluted during earlier negotiations. It is also possible that negotiations may collapse altogether and there will be no new Human Rights Council at all. This would mean that victims of human rights violations around the world would be denied the help of a truly effective UN body, and many people would suffer serious harm.
Before Bolton's statement, the vast majority of UN member states had expressed their support for the draft resolution. Support remains strong and was reaffirmed most recently by the European Union. The president of the General Assembly has stressed that he would like to see the resolution adopted before the Commission on Human Rights starts its final session this week.
Pushing the text to a vote, as the US has threatened to do, would offer a few countries that do not want any improvement in the current human rights system a major opportunity to further weaken the new Council. Postponing action on the draft for a few months as the US has also suggested could delay negotiations indefinitely. If that happens, there is a risk that the new Council will never come into being.
The new Human Rights Council would offer far-reaching, long-lasting and positive opportunities to further human rights protection by providing a UN political body with better members and better tools for the timely protection of human rights.
The existing Commission on Human Rights has not been able to address widespread or serious human rights violations in many countries, because powerful countries have prevented action against themselves or their friends
The Human Rights Council, as proposed in the draft resolution now before the General Assembly, would be better equipped to address both urgent and long-running human rights situations, whenever they occur. The Commission only meets once a year, for six weeks; the Council will meet at least three times a year and can more easily convene special sessions when needed, eg, to address emerging human rights crises.
In electing members, the General Assembly will be able to consider candidates' human rights records, and all members of the Council will have their human rights records reviewed in a new system that will apply equally to all countries rather than the handful selected by the Commission. Candidates must secure the votes of a majority of the 191 UN member states to be elected to the Council, rather than through uncontested appointment by acclamation to the Commission, and serious human rights violators can be suspended from membership.
The draft resolution also preserves key strengths of the Commission, including its unique system of independent experts and the important practice of NGO participation in its work. The adoption of the draft resolution is a first and crucial step to create a stronger and more authoritative body than the Commission on Human Rights.
The writer is the executive director of Amnesty International Malaysia.
