LMG: Unlikely protectors of human rights

Volume 4

July - September 2002

LMG: Unlikely protectors of human rights

Little progress was made on raising and elaborating human rights standards, but the LMG is not complaining

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 to celebrate. Not so for the Like Minded Group (LMG). This group - consisting of, among others, the delegations of Algeria, China, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria and Tunisia - notched up yet another "successful" CHR by ensuring that little progress was made on strengthening and elaborating human rights standards.

In recent years, the LMG has relied on a number of tried and tested techniques to hamper the efficiency of the CHR.

These include an excessive number of interventions (well over 30 percent of State interventions at the 57th session of the CHR were made by the Asian Group alone), promoting superfluous, superficial and often regressive resolutions and marginalising the work of 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.

Like-Minded Tactics

30 percent of State interventions at the 57th CHR session made by Asian Group alone.
Promotion of superfluous, superficial and regressive resolutions.
The Asian Group has always been in favour of a reduction in session time.
Disregard for NGO contributions and attempts to exclude NGOs.

Ultimately, the measures included a cut in speaking time for all delegations (barring the interventions of dignitaries) and the clustering of items toward 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.

Still, the austerity measures did hit the work of the CHR hard. Particularly alarming was the cut in the speaking time of the Secretary-General's 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.

Perhaps the most disturbing development at the 58th session of the CHR was the increased use of the no-action motion. It is a gag order that runs contrary to the principles of transparency, non-selectivity and accountability.

No-action motions erode the effectiveness, integrity and credibility of the CHR - that is precisely why the LMG favours them.

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.

A characteristic practice of the LMG is the promotion of unnecessary and sometimes regressive resolutions. A perusal of resolutions adopted at the 58th session shows that the practice continued at pace. Economic, social and cultural rights have historically been neglected by the CHR. Developments in the UN in the past five years have started to redress that state of affairs.

But, it is in the name of promoting economic, social and cultural rights 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 economic, social and cultural rights, and next year it would draft 40!

This scepticism springs largely from the fact that the LMG countries are barely leading the way in significant standard-setting developments for economic, social and cultural rights, 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 repertoire.

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, genuine and severe 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 more general strategy.

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 and credibility of the CHR - precisely why the LMG favors them so much.

Never a big supporter of NGOs, the LMG augmented 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".

The LMG could not have predicted a more unproductive CHR: time constraints meant that little standard-setting work was achieved; the voice of NGOs was marginalised and the LMG’s ability to ‘do the numbers’ with respect to several resolutions weakened the mechanism.

It would seem to be the LMG’s mission to stall the effective operation of the CHR.

This disregard for the contribution of NGOs was reflected in the debacle surrounding the Asian Group's meeting with Asian NGOs. Originally allocated only 20 minutes, the Japanese delegation, on behalf of the Asian Group, eventually offered an hour-long meeting with NGOs, 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 enjoyed successes with its use of 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: "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, seemed to fall 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" with respect to several resolutions weakened the mechanism.

It would seem to be the mission of the LMG to eventually wreck 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 genuine 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 being repeated in future years.