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U.S. Opposes U.N.'s Planned Rights Panel
Exclusion of Abusive Nations Sought
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
02/28/06 "Washington
Post" --- - UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 27 -- The Bush
administration will oppose a U.N.-backed resolution calling for the
creation of a council to expose the world's worst human rights
abusers, John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,
said Monday.
Bolton said that a draft charter presented Thursday by the U.N.
General Assembly president, Jan Eliasson, was not tough enough to
ensure that nations that abuse human rights would be barred from
joining the council. He said he was under instructions from
Washington to reopen negotiations on the text or postpone
deliberations on a new rights body for several months.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and other supporters of the
compromise warned that there is no better deal to be struck and that
the U.S. strategy could undermine their efforts to create an
improved, though imperfect, human rights body. "I think we should
not let the better be the enemy of the good," Annan told reporters
Monday in Geneva.
The United States and the United Nations have been pressing for
nearly a year to create a strengthened human rights council to
replace the 53-member Human Rights Commission. The reputation of the
Geneva-based panel, which helped draft the landmark Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, has recently been tainted by the
frequent election of members with dismal human rights records, such
as Sudan and Zimbabwe.
Senior U.S. and U.N. officials had sought to prevent countries with
poor rights records from joining the new organization by raising the
membership standards and requiring a two-thirds vote of the
191-member General Assembly for any nation's admittance. But the
proposal met stiff resistance, and the current draft resolution
would require members to be elected by an absolute majority -- at
least 96 countries.
"I say this really more in sorrow than in anger, but we're very
disappointed with the draft that was produced last Thursday. We
don't think it's acceptable," Bolton told reporters. "My
understanding is that the president of the General Assembly intends
to bring this matter to the General Assembly within a day or two for
a vote. If he continues on that course, we will call for a vote and
vote no."
Annan, U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour and two leading
human rights organizations (Human Rights Watch and Amnesty
International) say the compromise proposal is still worth
supporting. They have been joined by former president Jimmy Carter
and several other Nobel Prize winners, who issued a joint letter
calling on the United States and other governments to back the deal.
Annan, who discussed the human rights council Sunday with Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice, appealed Monday for the United States to
"join the vast majority of governments who seem ready to accept"
Eliasson's proposal. He and other supporters said the proposal
constituted a serious improvement on the existing Human Rights
Commission.
They noted that provisions to subject all council members to
scrutiny of their human rights record would discourage countries
with poor records from joining. They also said that council members
suspected of abusive behavior can be suspended by a vote of
two-thirds of the U.N. membership present.
"We are a country that puts high value on human rights. We wouldn't
vote in favor if we weren't sure it was going to be an improvement,"
said Chile's U.N. ambassador, Heraldo Muñoz, a former dissident who
was jailed under former Chilean ruler Augusto Pinochet.
The new council would consist of 47 members selected by secret
ballot on the basis of "geographical distribution" and committed to
"uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of
human rights." Members would be elected for as many as two
three-year terms at a time and would meet for at least 10 weeks
throughout the year.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
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