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HUMAN RIGHTS FEATURES (Voice
of the Asia-Pacific Human Rights Network) (A
joint initiative of SAHRDC and HRDC) B-6/6
Safdarjung Enclave Extension, New Delhi 110 029, India Tel:
+91-11-619 2717, 619 2706, 619 1120; Fax: 619 1120 E-mail:
hrdc_online@hotmail.com Home Page: http://www.hrdc.net/sahrdc/
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HRF/57/02 |
Embargoed for 29 May 2002 |
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Like Minded Group: Unlikely protectors of human
rights The
adoption of the Draft Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture
aside, the 58th session of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) left human
rights defenders with little else to celebrate. Not so the Like Minded
Group (LMG). This group – consisting of, among others, Cuba, Egypt,
Pakistan, China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Syria, Algeria, Nigeria and
Tunisia – notched up yet another ‘successful’ Commission by ensuring
that little progress was made on strengthening and elaborating human
rights standards. In
recent years, the LMG has resorted to a number of tried and tested
techniques to hamper the efficiency of the CHR. These include an excessive
number of interventions (over 30 percent of State interventions at the
57th session of the CHR were made by the Asian Group alone), promoting
superfluous, meaningless and often regressive resolutions and
marginalising the work of non governmental organisations (NGOs). These
methods were all employed in 2002, although the LMG also enjoyed some
unexpected advantages. In
the second week of the session, it was announced that due to budgetary
constraints the Secretariat in New York had suspended all night sessions
at the CHR. The LMG could not have been happier. The Asian Group
particularly, has for years urged that the session time of the CHR should
be cut and has opposed night sessions as a means of getting through the
CHR's agenda. The cessation of night sessions meant that the CHR had
difficulty getting through its work, and the Bureau was forced to adopt a
number of austerity measures. Ultimately,
the measures included a cut in speaking times for all delegations (barring
the interventions of dignitaries) and the clustering of items towards the
end of the agenda. It was no secret, that one of the solutions proposed by
the LMG in the Bureau would have seen no NGO interventions whatsoever. The
worst fears of NGOs were realised briefly under Item 9, when 34 NGOs were
not allowed to make their interventions on country situations. This
happened only once. Still,
the austerity measures did hit the work of the CHR hard. Particularly
alarming was the cut in the speaking time of the Secretary-Generals’
Special Representatives and Special Rapporteurs, Independent Experts and
Working Groups of the CHR. These important mechanisms – which provide
credible analyses of thematic and country-specific human rights violations
– were allocated five minutes each to present their reports. The mandate
holders rebelled. The limitations in speaking time, they said, did not do
justice to their mandates and they would therefore suggest only that
members of the plenary read their reports. It was all they could do to
express their displeasure. A
favourite pastime of the LMG is the promotion of unnecessary, sometimes
regressive resolutions. A perusal of resolutions adopted at the 58th
session shows that they were up to it yet again. It is true that
historically, economic, social and cultural rights (ESCRs) have been
neglected by the CHR. Developments in the UN in the past five years have
started to redress this state of affairs. It is in the name of promoting
ESCRs that the LMG advances many of its time and resource-wasting
resolutions. In response to a Human
Rights Features article on this issue during the 58th session, a Cuban
diplomat exulted that this year his delegation would sponsor 15 draft
resolutions on ESCRs, and next year it would draft 40! Human Rights Features fears
that this commitment to more draft resolutions on ESCRs is more to do with
putting more resolutions before the CHR, than taking meaningful measures
to protect and promote ESCRs. This cynicism springs largely from the fact
that the LMG countries are barely leading the way in significant ESCR
standard setting developments, for example in relation to the draft
optional protocol to the ICESCR or a draft declaration on human rights and
extreme poverty. LMG
resolutions adopted by the CHR in 2002 included such obscure resolutions
as ‘Strengthening of popular participation, equity, social justice and
non-discrimination as essential foundations of democracy’ (in operative
paragraph 3 it notes that there is “no one universal model of
democracy”) and ‘Human Rights and International Solidarity’.
Old favourites such as the non-human rights-related toxic waste
resolution were also in the LMG arsenal. In addition to taking up the time
and resources of the CHR in terms of the negotiation and voting process,
some of these resolutions involve financial implications for an already
cash-strapped Secretariat. Clearly, they also take attention away from
pressing, legitimate human rights violations. Perhaps
the most disturbing development at the CHR was the increased use of the
no-action motion. Previously this procedural motion – which prevents the
CHR from taking any additional action, including voting on a resolution
– had only been proposed by the LMG in respect of the draft resolution
on China. This year it became
part of the LMGs regular artillery. While a no-action motion was only
adopted once during the CHR – in respect of the draft on Zimbabwe – it
was invoked an additional two times unsuccessfully – once in respect of
Cuba, the other in respect of the Draft Optional Protocol to the
Convention Against Torture. Human Rights Features deplores
the use of the no-action motion in respect of any draft resolution. It is
a gag-order that runs contrary to principles of transparency,
non-selectivity and freedom of expression. Moreover, no-action motions
erode the effectiveness, integrity and credibility of the CHR – and that
is precisely why the LMG likes them so much. Never a big fan of NGOs, the
LMG upped its attack on NGOs during this CHR session. In an intervention, Japanese
Ambassador Yusuaki Nogawa stated: “Despite the Asian Group having raised
these issues on several occasions, there have been instances where NGO
accreditation procedures have not been fully complied with and sometimes
even exploited or misused to advance interests outside the scope of human
rights. … cases of NGOs misleading fellow NGO representatives into
unwittingly subscribing to spurious documents for circulation in the
Commission have been recognised in past sessions.” This
disregard for the contribution of NGOs was reflected in the debacle
surrounding the Asian Groups meeting with Asian NGOs. Originally allocated
only 20 minutes, the Japanese delegation, on behalf of the Asian Group,
eventually offered an hour, provided that: they were given a list of NGOs
attending; only people working for the NGO that accredited them attended;
and that specific countries were not mentioned. The deal was unacceptable
to NGOs and the meeting was never held. While
their treatment of NGOs was poor, the LMG has never enjoyed such successes
with its various Government-organised non governmental organisations, or
GONGOs. Precious NGO speaking time in the plenary was wasted with poorly
written, poorly read statements drafted in the capitals, while lunchtime
NGO meetings were disrupted by GONGOs defending their governments and
criticising legitimate NGOs. There was simply no escaping them. Indeed,
the pretence that these organisations are independent was all but
abandoned. One Pakistani diplomat complained to Human
Rights Features, saying: “You didn't criticise India enough. They
brought dozens of GONGOs; we only brought four!” Central
to the LMG strategy for the 58th session was the human rights situation in
the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). While Israeli violations in
the OPT are grave and deserved the attention of the CHR, there is little
question that they were used by the LMG to divert attention away from
other human rights issues – namely in LMG member States. Tibet, for
example, fell off the CHR's agenda. The
LMG could not have predicted a more unproductive CHR: time constraints
meant that little standard setting work could be achieved, the voice of
NGOs was marginalised and the LMG's ability to ‘do the numbers’ in
respect of several resolutions weakened the mechanism. It
would seem to be the mission of the LMG to ultimately collapse the
effective operation of the CHR. States that violate human rights on a
systematic basis do not want their human rights records to be subjected to
international scrutiny or for standards of protection to be strengthened.
Regrettably, the increasing leverage of the LMG and their mastery of the
rules of procedure of the CHR suggest that the successes of the 58th
session are in danger of replication in the future. - Human Rights Features |
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