The overwhelming United Nations General Assembly vote Wednesday to replace the current, discredited Human Rights Commission with a new Human Rights Council represents a step forward, despite concerns by the U.S. and other nations.
The structure of the current, 53-member body has allowed human-rights violators on the commission to shield themselves and others from criticism.
The United States was one of four nations opposing the new council, with U.S. Ambassador John Bolton arguing that the criteria for picking members wasn’t tough enough. The U.S. also favors a smaller body whose members would be elected by a two-thirds majority, the intention being to keep human rights abusers such as Libya and Sudan off the panel.
Members of the new body will be elected by an absolute majority of the 191-member General Assembly – 96 members. Voting would be by secret ballot. Members of the current commission were chosen by a system of regional voting that made it easy for problem members to be selected.
Assembly President Jan Eliasson of Sweden, who brokered the compromise plan, said that “innovative elements” of the new body also should make it better. Council members whose human rights records are deemed unacceptable could be suspended, member nations will serve for two three-year terms and member nations will have their rights records examined by the body.
Instead of meeting in Geneva once a year for six weeks, as does the present commission now, the new council will meet three times a year and can call itself into special session.
The new council is a compromise and far from the perfect solution. It is less of a change than originally proposed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and its 47-member size is far too unwieldy.
But the change is being welcomed by many human rights groups and former President Jimmy Carter. Human Rights Watch called the new council a “great improvement” over the old one. “Its ability to protect the weakest will now depend on the commitment of governments to curb rights violations,” said Kenneth Roth, the group’s executive director.
The first test of the new body will come in May, when its members will be elected. We hope the General Assembly votes wisely and keeps human-rights violators off the council. The new body will begin work in June.
And the U.S. needs to work to help make the new entity as strong as possible.
