Last Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited with President George Bush at the White House to discuss creating a U.N. Peacekeeping Force for the Darfur region in Sudan and replacing the discredited Human Rights Commission. After the meeting, Bush said, “I appreciate very much his leading on these issues, and we’ll continue to work closely.”
Annan has certainly provided exemplary leadership in his efforts to prevail on U.N. members to respond forcefully to the tragedy in the Darfur and to reform the Human Rights Commission, whose “declining credibility,” he said, “has cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations’ system.”
The hard truth is that the United Nations has been singularly unsuccessful in preventing, deterring or halting grave violations of human rights, even genocide, in Cambodia, Rwanda and Darfur. The existing U.N. machinery is ill-equipped, inadequate and ineffective in protecting the human rights of individuals and groups suffering from the excesses of tyrannical regimes. As the U.N. secretary-general has noted, “Changes are needed if the United Nations is to sustain long-term, high-level engagement on human rights issues.”
The primary U.N. institutions on human rights are the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Effective action to stop genocide, however, can be taken only by the Security Council, which has thus far failed to act on Darfur but is expected this spring to empower a peacekeeping force with a strong mandate.
It was historic last September when more than 150 heads of state and government convened at a U.N. World Summit in New York and agreed to accept the obligation to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The World Summit placed responsibility on the international community through the Security Council to take collective action, including military action, decisively and in a timely fashion “on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with the relevant regional organizations, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations” from these crimes.
Although under the U.N. Charter the Security Council can use force after it determines that a threat to international peace and security exists, both the Security Council and General Assembly should adopt resolutions enumerating guidelines for the Security Council, if it decides to use force. The basic criteria suggested by several keen observers include seriousness of the threat, proportional means, use of force as a last resort, proper purpose, and reasonable chance of success so that consequences of action are not likely to be worse than the consequences of inaction.
A more broadly representative U.N. Security Council – with Germany, Japan, India, Brazil and a couple of African countries as members – will certainly lend it more credibility.
On the second issue, negotiations are underway to replace the 53-member U.N. Commission on Human Rights with a smaller, more agile, and more effective Human Rights Council. The American Bar Association’s task force on reforming the Human Rights Commission, on which I served, recommended in a report last year that the proposed Human Rights Council be a standing body, to be elected by a two-thirds vote of the entire membership of the General Assembly. It proposed that a state under U.N. sanctions be barred from membership. It also recommended that the Council adopt a Code of Conduct committing the countries elected to council membership to promote and honor international human rights efforts and to fully cooperate with the council’s investigations of alleged abuses. The secretary general, a bipartisan U.S. congressional task force, a number of think tanks and delegates representing several countries have made similar suggestions.
These reforms are designed to prevent human rights abusers such as Sudan, Cuba and Zimbabwe, all members of the commission, from hijacking it to avoid scrutiny of their violations, as well as from serving on the new council and blocking action. The ABA task force further suggested that the role of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in coordinating U.N. human rights activities, be strengthened and the participation of nongovernmental organizations in the office’s activities enhanced.
U.N. members are considering several proposals at this session of the General Assembly. President Bush’s expressed desire to work closely with the U.N. on these issues is promising. Now it is up to the U.S. to provide skillful and constructive leadership so these reforms will happen.
Ved Nanda, Marsh Professor of Law and director, International Legal Studies Program at the University of Denver, served on the American Bar Association Task Force on Reforming the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
