UN’s Human Rights body under fire
The operation of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights came under attack yesterday from its own chairman as well as human rights groups for playing politics rather than making a genuine attempt to promote human rights and tackle abuses.
South Africa’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva and current Chairman of the commission, said it was essential to reform the block voting system which led people to vote on the basis of group solidarity and not on the substance of human rights issues. At a news conference prior to the end of the commission’s annual session the ambassador said the group system may have been of use in the past but it was now a “hindrance”. His outspoken attack on the working of the commission coincided with accusations by human rights groups that grave human rights violations in Algeria and China have been ignored.
Before the six-week commission session, both the European Union and the US announced that they would not sponsor a resolution against China in recognition of progress made and continuing discussions on human rights.
For its part, Algeria has vigorously resisted outside intervention despite president calls for the UN to investigate massacres in the country which have led to the deaths of more than 65000 people since 1992.
A US-based Human Rights Watch member said by doing nothing on China and Algeria the US contributed to the surprise defeat of its resolution on Cuba, because it underlined “the lack of consistent standards” in US human rights policy.
The commission passed resolutions criticizing killings and other abuses in Afghanistan, Congo, Colombia, Iran, Iraq, Burma, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan and former Yugoslavia. A vote on Burundi is expected, along with a statement on east Timor.
South Africa’s ambassador attributed the failures of consistency to group voting, and said he would be urging the commission to look at reform. He would also be recommending changes to the commission’s agenda next year so that it could look more flexibly at different human rights situations rather than continue discussion of the same old issues.
At the same time, he said the commission, which celebrated its 50th anniversary, had some successes, including a declaration calling on states to protect human rights defenders which went to the UN general assembly for approval.
TEXT №5
Globalization
The age of globalization has replaced the era of the cold war. But we still tend to act and think as if nothing had changed.
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It is not only financial markets, that have gone global. So too has the manufacture of deadly weapons.
Globalization, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, has raised “fundamental questions about the capacity of the international system, as currently organized, to ensure stability and, security”.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies admits that Globalization of markets did not cause a domino effect in which the financial crises affecting Asian economies spread to US and European markets. Nonetheless it does have other worrying aspects. “The proliferation of technological know-how and the capacity to manufacture modern weapons significantly increases the threat to security worldwide”.
More and more states have the technical skills to research nuclear, biological and chemical weapons for which they can acquire parts on commercial markets. Terrorists and drug traffickers can use the same speedy communications and information technology as everybody else. These trends pose a particular challenge to the US as the “hyper-power” to which the world turns to solve many of its problems.
The US is sometimes slow to see the strength of a developing problem and to decide on how its national interests are affected. Its reaction is also constrained by domestic politics, with the President administration distracted by possible hostile reaction from Congress. “Even at the best of times, US attention to the world outside is intermittent”. As a result, problems reach a point when they require forceful action, although the American public is still indifferent to them.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies argues this was the case in two big crises, The Asian financial collapse and the confrontation with Iraq. In Asia, the US did not force concerted action until the collapse of Thailand's economy had brought down some of the other Asian countries, and slowed potential economic recoveries. Iraq’s obstruction of the international inspection teams led to the crises which reached soon boiling-point before being forced to back down.
It sees Washington needing to tread a fine line between acting unilaterally and through international institutions, which in both of these cases had the effect of making remedial actions less clear-cut.
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In a global, interdependent world, what does national sovereignty mean? Can Europe dream of becoming a new “power” in classical terms when the very notion of power has been transformed?”
Even in terms of security, the notion of sovereignty does not fully correspond to the reality of a Europe whose main guarantor is the US (through NATO). Often Europeans wait for US initiatives. What is the meaning of sovereignty when it is not accompanied by independent responsibility?
Meanwhile, Europe will be forced to redefine the meanings of sovereignty and identity in the absence of a clear geographic definition of itself. The Union will continue to move forward with monetary union believing, righty, that there is light, not at the end of the tunnel, but in the process itself.
ТЕКСТ №1
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