United Nations Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council is an international body within the United Nations System. Its purpose is to address human rights violations, and it is the successor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which was often criticised for the high-profile positions it gave to member states that did not guarantee the human rights of their own citizens.
On Wednesday, 15 March 2006, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of creating the new human rights body, with the resolution receiving approval from 170 members of the 191-nation Assembly. Only the United States, the Marshall Islands, Palau, and Israel voted against the Council's creation, claiming that it would have too little power and that there were insufficient safeguards to prevent human rights-abusing nations from taking control. Belarus, Iran and Venezuela abstained from the vote, and a further seven countries (Central African Republic, DPR Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Georgia, Kiribati, Liberia and Nauru) were absent from the session.
Council structure
The 47-seat Human Rights Council will replace the current 53-member Commission on Human Rights. The Commission was an independent body, but the Council will be elevated to the status of a subsidiary body of the Assembly. The 47 seats in the new Council will be distributed among the UN's regional groups as follows: 13 for Africa, 13 for Asia, 6 for Eastern Europe, 8 for Latin America and the Caribbean, and 7 for the Western European and Others Group.
Unlike the former Commission, which was criticised for the election of Libya to its chairmanship in 2003, the Council's members will be required to meet "the highest standards" of human rights and will be subject to periodic review. To ensure no human rights violators will be easily admitted to the Council, each member nation of the Council must be approved individually and directly by a majority (96 of 191) of the members of the General Assembly, in a secret ballot. Council membership is also limited to two consecutive terms, and by a two-thirds vote of the Assembly, any Council member may be suspended.
The first election of members is scheduled for 9 May. The Commission has been asked to wrap up its work by 16 June 2006, to make way for the first meeting of the Council on 19 June.
United States boycott
President George W. Bush declared that the United States would not seek a seat on the Council, saying it would be more effective from the outside. He did pledge, however, to support the Council financially. United States State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "We will work closely with partners in the international community to encourage the council to address serious cases of human rights abuse in countries such as Iran, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Burma, Sudan, and North Korea."
A spokesman for United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed Annan's disappointment that the United States had decided not to run for the Council, but he said that the Secretary General hoped that the United States would reconsider in 2007.
Ambassador John Bolton rejected a reporter's question which asked him if the United States thought that, considering its actions in the Abu Ghraib Prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the United States would be unable to muster the 96 votes from the United Nations General Assembly necessary to gain a seat.
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