Global IssuesHuman Rights Council Candidates Run Unopposed
When the U.N. General Assembly meets later this week to elect 14 new members for the Geneva-based Human Rights Council (HRC), the election results will be highly predictable for one reason: all candidates are running unopposed as nominees of their respective geographical regions.
For the first time since the premier U.N. human rights body was created in 2006, all of the geographical regions have submitted a 'clean slate' of candidates eliminating the very concept of competitiveness in elections to the 47-member HRC.
The Asian states have four candidates (Malaysia, Maldives, Qatar and Thailand) for four seats and the Eastern European states two candidates (Poland and Moldova) for two seats.
Similarly, the Africans have nominated four candidates (Angola, Libya, Mauritania and Uganda) for four seats; the Latin American and Caribbean states have nominated two candidates (Ecuador and Guatemala) for two seats; and the Western European states are fielding two candidates (Spain and Switzerland) for two seats.
Without competitive elections, states are deprived of the chance to select the candidates best suited to serve on the Council, warns Human Rights Watch.
'The lack of competition is becoming the norm,' says one Asian diplomat, speaking off the record.
Even the Western European states, who advocate the virtues of democratic choices, are going down the same road after making a strong case during the negotiations to create the HRC on the need for competitive elections, he said.
'It shows amongst other things that the HRC is slowly regressing,' he added.
Both Freedom House and U.N. Watch, two non-governmental organisations (NGOs) monitoring the upcoming elections scheduled to take place May 13, released a report last week critical of the non-competitive nature of the elections by the 192-member General Assembly.
The report said that of the 14 candidates, only five, by their reckoning, are considered to be 'qualified' to serve on the Council: Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Guatemala and the Maldives.
But the report also identified five candidates as having 'questionable' human rights records: Moldova, Ecuador, Uganda, Libya and Thailand.
Hilel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, went one step further. He has urged delegates 'not to write in the name of Libya or other unqualified candidates when filling out the four African slots on their secret ballot'.
'They should instead write in the names of African countries with far greater qualifications,' he said.
Meanwhile, the NGO Coalition for an Effective Human Rights Council has 'expressed concern' over the human rights records of five candidates: Angola, Libya, Malaysia, Thailand, and Uganda.
The coalition says their records fall short of the standards set for council membership, including the obligation 'they uphold the highest standards of human rights and that they fully cooperate with the Council'.
The coalition has urged U.N. member states to push those countries to take concrete steps to address human rights concerns, and to withhold their votes from countries that do not take such action.
In a statement released Monday, Human Rights Watch said the General Assembly set a high threshold for membership in the Council, and has a duty to enforce it.
'When a state seeks a seat on the council, the least it should do is open its doors to the council's own experts', says Peggy Hicks, global advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.
'But many of the candidates running this year have stalled on requests by council experts to visit,' she said.
'This is a problem that can and should be addressed before Thursday's election,' Hicks added.
In its statement, HRW said the General Assembly resolution that created the Human Rights Council in 2006 envisioned an election process in which states would compete for membership based on the contribution they would make to promoting human rights.
At the same time, these states were expected to issue pledges and commitments that U.N. members should consider in casting their votes.
That process has deteriorated as fewer states have competed each year.
Bahey el-din Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), points out that Iran's withdrawal from the race last week showed that international pressure can improve the membership of the council, and demonstrated the importance of competitive elections for seats.
© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service