NOW THAT LIBYA’S OFF THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

On February 28th, 2011, the UN Human Rights Council reconvened.  Eight years ago that Spring, I witnessed Najat Al-Hajjaji preside for the first time as the Libyan elected Chair at the old UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR).  I was a member of the US delegation, which had just had to fight to win back a seat it had lost two years earlier – and, lo and behold – Libya was elected CHR’s chair.

Now we come full circle as the UN Human Rights Council, a body created to improve upon the CHR, debated the carnage Colonel Qaddafi has wrought, voted to suspend Libya’s membership.  It is an apt moment to assess the global architecture designed to promote human rights.

China is rising, offering an illiberal model and no good governance “strings” on its patronage to developing states.  The developing world’s most liberal region, Latin America, has witnessed populist leaders curtailing constitutional provisions for contestation.

Despite areas of receding freedoms, the wave of demands to overthrow brittle autocracies in Northern Africa and the Middle East is reason for optimism.

Alas, optimism cannot extend to the state of global-scope public institutions charged with addressing human rights.  Human Rights Council action on Libya is an outlier.  That Council has been sidelined by a disproportionate focus on Israel, and assaults, roundly criticized by civil liberties NGOs, on free expression and religious pluralism posing as protection of religion from defamation.

At the Security Council, despite current unanimity on Libya, China and Russia blocked more sweeping action on Sudan, and any action on Burma, North Korea, or Zimbabwe – favoring parochial interests over regional security threatened by the scale of fleeing victims.

The International Criminal Court has taken on acute cases of atrocities, but targets senior leadership only.  It has no power to apprehend indictees.

That global-scope institutions have foundered is by no means reason to give up on multilateral efforts to promote what the UN Charter calls the “fundamental freedoms for all.”  The gap in global governance of fundamental freedoms requires four steps to creatively leverage diversified assets.

First, the UN can buoy civil society.  The UN Development Programme should return to its emphasis a decade ago on helping civil society promote freedoms that spur economic development.  The 5-year-old UN Democracy Fund, detached from General Assembly politics and reserving 85 percent of its resources for NGOs, is ready to scale up.  Moreover, the therwise disappointing UN Human Rights Council did succeed in creating a Universal Periodic Review (UPR) that empowers national NGOs to assess governments’ behaviours and their progress on recommendations the UPR yields.

Second, regional bodies may have more pride of ownership, will, and capacity to act than do global bodies; and so regional bodies may be the ones most worth bolstering.  The Organization of American States and its Inter-American Democratic Charter (signed in Chile the day of “911”) are needed to stop strongmen undercutting pluralism.   The African Union has taken promising steps to “own” good governance, and other regional groups like the Organization of American States and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe should encourage it.  NATO should continue to offer a special military capacity in times of human rights calamity—it did in Kosovo, and it could in Libya.

Third, not only do global fora, regional bodies, and NGOs need to engage one another in partnerships; businesses need to be included too.  For instance, gross exploitation of marginalized people cannot be curtailed if the business community is not actively securing supply chains from forced labor and odious child labor, and grappling with usury, document seizure, and fraud perpetrated against migrant workers.

Finally, the United States is neither in such decline nor so inherently unilateralist that it cannot play a crucial role in galvanizing multilateral action.  There is still no country with greater power to convene, cajole, and carry out action on human rights.  Global governance on human rights needs the U.S., just as the U.S. needs to leverage its influence over human rights around the world.It may thus be time to embrace a kind of “mosaic multilateralism” when it comes to overseeing the global campaign for human rights. Like artists who craft a large vision through the careful placement of individual pieces, the global governance of human rights needs to embrace all these distinct pieces as components of one system.  Canada and the United States are especially well suited to inspire this kind of approach, because they each pursue similar principles in their own public policy: they understand that interests intermingle with values, and that partnerships with multilateral organizations, civil society, and business actors are transformative.

By Mark P. Lagon
Chair, International Relations and Security
Georgetown University

 

RELATED MATERIAL FOR THE WEEK OF MARCH 7

BACKGROUND

From the earliest days of the United Nations, human rights have existed at the forefront of UN activity. The UN Declaration of Human Rights, arguably the keystone of 20th century human rights doctrine, was adopted by the UN in 1948. Since then, the UN has also adopted two corollary documents, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which together with the UNDHR comprise the “International Bill of Human Rights.”

The United Nations Human Rights Council was created by the UN General Assembly in 2006 to replace the previous UN Human Rights body, the UN Commission on Human Rights. GA Resolution 60/251, which created the UNHRC, notes that the body’s primary responsibilities are “promoting universal respect for the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction of any kind and in a fair and equal manner;” and addressing  “situations of violations of human rights, including gross and systematic violations, and make recommendations thereon.”

The UNHRC is comprised of forty-seven elected member state representatives, who are voted on by the General Assembly and who sit on the council for no more than two consecutive three year terms.  The previous organization, the UNCHR, was deemed on multiple occasions by both internal and external observers to have given political concerns precedence over concerns related to human rights. In 2007, in part in response to this criticism, the UNHCR introduced several new organizational structures, including the Universal Periodic Review. However, there is evidence that political concerns continue to feature in UNHRC deliberations; for instance, Reuters Africa reported on Thursday, March 3rd that the UNHCR had until recently planned on releasing a report that was “soft” on Libyan human rights issues, before the report was sidelined in light of recent events.

Last Friday, February 26th, the UNHCR recommended the suspension of Libya as a member, an initiative which was approved Tuesday by consensus in the UN General Assembly. Moreover, Omar Khaddafi, the current leader of Libya, was recommended to the International Criminal Court for committing crimes against humanity by forcibly retaliating against protesters in Libya. The move has been praised by members of western delegations to the UN, though leaders from Venezuela have noted concern at the potential for international military intervention in Libya.

RELATED MATERIALS

  • The Times of India recently published an editorial by Ramesh Thakur, who links the UNHRC’s suspension of Libya with the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, which was adopted by the UN in 2005.  Thakur notes that the UN General Assembly and Security Council have historically failed to live up to their commitments regarding swift and effective response to mass human rights abuses, and demands that the international community act decisively in response to human rights violations in Libya.
  • Reuters reported Thursday, March 3rd, that Venezuelan officials had hinted at a preliminary plan to negotiate peace in Libya, with former Brazilian President Lula Ignacio da Silva as the suggested envoy.
  • Harvard’s Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy is a leading actor in crafting human rights policy studies and training future policy leaders.
  • The Council on Foreign Relations conducts research and hosts numerous events on the subject of democracy and human rights. Moreover, CFR experts have written on the subject of Libya in several major publications in recent days.
  • Human Rights Watch has been active in publishing research on human rights violations related to protests in the Middle East. HRW recently published a Q&A article on the impending International Criminal Court’s proceedings against Muammar Khaddafi, which explains key charges against the leader and explains steps that will be taken in the near future by the ICC.