Patterns of domestic human rights abuses in India are relatively well documented. However, it is in the international sphere that India's human rights activities are less well publicised.  So here they are held up to the light. 

As party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), India has come under increasing fire from the Human Rights Committee for not addressing the questions that are put to it in its state reports, and in ignoring the recommendations of the Committee as a rule of thumb.  It still maintains reservations to the Covenant that run contrary to its spirit, including India's practice of preventive detention, and the fact that there is no statutory right to compensation.   

Whilst a signatory to the Convention Against Torture (CAT), India has claimed for the last nine years that mere procedural stumbling blocks prevent the ratification of the Convention, although these have never been disclosed and no discernable progress has been made in any area that would comply with obligations under CAT. Further, the opinion has been expressed within government that such ratification would lead to "unnecessary interference" from outside.  

India has not submitted a report to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in over 20 years, and is at the forefront of attempting to derail the drafting of an Optional Protocol to the Covenant. 

India is also disposed to refusing the UN’s Special Procedures an invitation to conduct country missions. To date, three Special Rapporteurs (SRs) have been granted the right to visit India, on the right to food, violence against women, and freedom of religion or belief, in 2005, 2000, and 1996 respectively. The SRs on racism and toxic waste, the Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders, and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, have all had their requests ignored. The SRs on extrajudicial executions and torture have had continual requests ignored since 1993.  Other SRs additional to the above, such the SRs on housing, the sale of children, and migrants, have written to the Indian government expressing various concerns, but at the time of writing, have yet to receive replies.    

But it is in the deliberations of the UN Commission on Human Rights, where India can exercise a direct negative influence, that it is most regressive. In line with other States who oppose agenda item 9's country specific resolutions on the grounds that they are unproductive and politically motivated, India last year abstained on the North Korea resolution, voted against the Cuba resolution, voted in favor of a no-action motion on Belarus, and opposed the resolution proper. Its allies included China, Congo, Egypt, Sudan and Zimbabwe.  

Concerning the resolution on extrajudicial executions, India voted in favor of Pakistan's proposal to delete the paragraph which called upon States concerned to investigate promptly and thoroughly all cases of killings “including those committed in the name of passion or in the name of honour”, as if to suggest that such executions are exempt from prompt and thorough investigation.  

And concerning the death penalty, India proposed to delete any reference calling on States who have not done so to abolish the death penalty, “not to execute any person as long as any related legal procedure, at the international or at the national level, is pending”, and any reference to assuring that the death penalty will not be carried out following a request for extradition for any capital charge. It then proceeded to abstain from the final vote.  

India's attitude to the Human Rights Council  

The process of replacing the UN Commission on Human Rights with the Human Rights Council represented a litmus test of UN reform, where the measure of its success was seen to symbolize the UN's ability to transform itself, and ultimately its relevance to those who threaten to abandon global multilateralism entirely.  There is no question that the Commission's credibility had been undermined by the fact that States sought membership in order to shield themselves from scrutiny, and that such a credibility deficit, to quote the Secretary General, had "cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole." 

Upon adoption of the resolution to establish the Human Rights Council in New York on 15 March 2006, India heralded this achievement of creating "an organ with a high threshold" as being consistent with its "commitment to the enlargement of human freedoms throughout the world." However, in the drafting of the text for the Human Rights Council, India's position was once again more aligned with the Like Minded Group and the most egregious of human rights violators. It is also a microcosm of India's general attitude to international human rights. 

The following are the positions that India took in the drafting process. Beginning with more creditable proposals, India believed that the Council should be a subsidiary organ of the UN, but did not support the proposal for a five-year review to determine whether to elevate the Council as a principal organ of the UN.  Secondly, it supported the proposal that the Council would undertake a universal periodic review of each State's human rights record.  

The rest of India's contributions unmasked its real intentions. India was opposed to a Council that could work for the prevention of human rights violations and respond to human rights emergencies, including sending fact-finding missions. Its partners in opposition were Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Singapore and Syria. India supported the creation of a Sub-Council, alongside the African Group, Pakistan, Libya and Indonesia. The reason for this was not clear, although it can be assumed that this would have been designed to create another bureaucratic black hole in which to bury critical issues under strictly thematic mandates.  

Further, India proposed, alongside China, Pakistan, Cuba, Belarus and Singapore, that the Council should review the work of the OHCHR. Attempting to threaten the independence of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), this proposal would have sought to criticise the content and alleged political intention of the Office's reporting (Cuba has in the past gone so far as to allege that the OHCHR’s recruitment policies are designed to ensure that those employed will pillory developing countries), and thus eventually undermine its credibility and support. 

Regarding the size, composition, and membership of the Commission, India wanted the figure to remain at 53 members, at odds with the Secretary General's observation that such a size was unwieldy. India did not support election by a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly, proposed in order to decrease the likelihood of electing serious human rights abusers to the Council. Rather, India favoured a simple majority. India believed that Council members should be immediately eligible for re-election, and that there was no need for a higher number of candidates than available seats, thus aiming to preserve their own position and the position of those who seek to sit ad infinitum on the Council. And India did not support a standing body, but wished for the duration of the Council's sessions to remain the same. In short, to paraphrase the normally not-so-poetic US Ambassador John Bolton, India was happy to put lipstick on a caterpillar and call it a butterfly.  

There were also many substantive elements to which India expressed severe reservations, including for instance to abide by/be guided by "the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights, fully cooperate with the Council, and be [the first to be] reviewed under the universal periodic review mechanism during their term of office."  It was clear during the drafting process that India was not happy with abiding by the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights, which is an indefensible position for any State to take. It is, however, consistent with its general diplomacy and aptly reflective of how much India fails to abide by the highest human rights standards in practice. 

Little of the above should come as any surprise to those who have monitored India's compliance and commitment to international human rights. India has traditionally sat firmly in the camp that bemoaned the politicisation of the Commission, and opposes the singling out of individual States under any circumstances, no matter how egregious their human rights record, as a matter of principle. 

So when India speaks of reform, it speaks of reform along the same lines envisaged by those who wish to maintain all elements that obfuscate from critical issues, and substantially weaken any elements that may prove to be effective, however piecemeal.  

It is for this reason that one great myth of the modern world should be exposed; that democracy is no guarantee of transparency, and is certainly no guarantee of any commitment to abiding by the highest standards of human rights.

 Human Rights Features