JBI Human Rights

New JBI Report on the Impact of the UN's Human Rights Office in New York

A new report by the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights charts the progress made by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in New York (OHCHR-NY), focusing particularly on the years since an Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) for Human Rights was created to head the office in 2010. The report reveals that OHCHR-NY has made great strides in increasing the impact of the UN’s human rights program on the United Nations’ broader work related to peace and security, development, and humanitarian assistance, and at the same time has begun to serve as a key New York-based facilitator for independent UN human rights experts, human rights defenders, and NGOs.

Informed by an expert discussion convened by JBI in early 2017, the report proposes a number of recommendations to strengthen the UN's response to serious human rights crises around the world in the years ahead.

The report is available for download here.

 

Game-Changer: the U.S. at the UN Human Rights Council

JBI's new briefing paper, Game-Changer: the U.S. at the UN Human Rights Council, presents data and analysis demonstrating how the U.S. presence on the Human Rights Council has led to results in key U.S. priority areas, including  on the body’s performance with respect to country-specific scrutiny and its treatment of Israel.

Noting that further reforms to address the Council’s enduring flaws are both necessary and achievable, the briefing paper puts forward recommendations on how the U.S. can work with allies to achieve these reforms in the years ahead.  It also concludes, with an eye to the Council's record of performance during the years prior to U.S. engagement, that a U.S. withdrawal from the world body would result in negative consequences for multilateral efforts to protect and advance human rights.

Key findings include:

• The U.S. presence on the Human Rights Council has resulted in scrutiny of many of the world’s worst human rights violators. 
• The Council has promoted universal human rights principles as a result of U.S. engagement.
• U.S. participation has improved the Human Rights Council’s treatment of Israel.
• The Council’s membership is more rights-respecting as a result of U.S. leadership.
• U.S. engagement with the Human Rights Council has been a “game changer” for the world body, and redoubled commitment to reform could bring significant improvements.

The full text of the briefing paper is available for download here: JBI Briefing Paper - Game Changer - US on UNHRC

 

 

 

The Impact of US Engagement on the UN Human Rights Council’s Country-Specific* Scrutiny

For the past seven and a half years, the United States has devoted substantial diplomatic effort to improving the performance of the UN Human Rights Council, the preeminent intergovernmental body devoted to human rights. When the US began to engage with the Council in 2009, it identified two areas of the body’s performance as in particular need of improvement: (1) the number of human rights violators that the Council identified by name and targeted for scrutiny in its resolutions; and (2) the Council’s strikingly disproportionate focus on one State –Israel.

In an effort to review the effect of US engagement on the Council’s performance, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) has reviewed the number of “country-specific resolutions” adopted by the Council, the number of special sessions convened by the Council on human rights crises, and the number of independent “special procedure mandates” created by the Council to investigate country-specific and thematic human rights issues. 

Our review reveals that US engagement has made a significant mark on the Council’s performance. In particular, US engagement brought about a significant increase in the number of Council resolutions that address specific human rights violations. For example, in 2015, the last year of the second US term of membership, the Council adopted 31 “country-specific” resolutions, more than twice as many as the Council adopted in 2006, 2007, or 2008. These resolutions address and call for further UN reporting on human rights violations in North Korea, Iran, Syria, Myanmar (Burma), South Sudan, Belarus, Eritrea, Sri Lanka, Burundi, Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo,  Central African Republic, Somalia, Libya, Mali, Yemen, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Cambodia, and Ukraine. In 2015 the Council also adopted resolutions condemning human rights abuses perpetrated by the terrorist groups Da’esh and Boko Haram.

Moreover, the number of Israel-specific resolutions adopted by the Council declined during the period of US membership, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of all country-specific resolutions. From 2006 to 2008, the period of US disengagement from the Council, Israel was condemned in more than half (17 out of 33) of all country-specific resolutions. In contrast, in 2015 the Council adopted five resolutions condemning Israel, which constituted 19 percent of the country-specific resolutions adopted by the Council that year.

The US served two three-year terms on the Council, from 2009 to 2015. Procedural rules required the US to rotate off the Council in 2016.  During this mandatory off-year, the US remained deeply engaged: the US maintained a dedicated Ambassador to the Council in Geneva who served as coordinator of the Western European and Others Group of States (WEOG) and continued to make the Council a diplomatic priority.  This was reflected in the Council’s performance; the number of country-specific resolutions adopted in 2016 declined slightly, but not substantially, and by the end of the year the Council had adopted 27 country-specific resolutions.

The US has been re-elected to a three-year term of membership on the Council beginning in 2017, and thus far the Council has completed only one of its three annual sessions.  There, the Council adopted more country-specific resolutions (15) than it did at the corresponding sessions in 2016 (12) and 2015 (12). The number of country-specific resolutions on Israel remained the same (5) from the Spring 2016 to Spring 2017 sessions.

Despite these positive changes, the Human Rights Council’s performance remains lacking in key respects.  The Council continues to focus its attention exceedingly disproportionately on the human rights situation in Israel. It also has not adopted resolutions criticizing a number of States that bear responsibility for the commission of particularly serious violations of human rights, though groups of Member States have made joint statements expressing concern about human rights conditions on some of these countries, including China. 

Nevertheless, this updated review demonstrates that US engagement has corresponded with a marked improvement in the Council’s performance. The findings suggest that this hard-earned progress might well be lost should the US retreat from its leadership role.

Our detailed documentation and analysis of trends over time, as well as background information, can be found in the full analysis below.

* In this study, the term “country-specific” is used to designate resolutions and special sessions that draw attention to particular human rights violations as opposed to thematic human rights issues. This term includes resolutions and special sessions that address specific countries and those that are primarily aimed at monitoring human rights abuses perpetrated by specific non-State actors, such as armed terrorist groups. 

US & UN Human Rights Council: The Next Chapter— Discussion with US Amb. Keith Harper

 

On February 2, 2016, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) and the United Nations Foundation (UNF) convened a discussion with Ambassador Keith Harper, United States Representative to the UN Human Rights Council, entitled “The United States and the UN Human Rights Council: The Next Chapter.” An abridged edited version of the event, created by the Jewish Broadcasting Service, is available above.

Country-Specific Scrutiny by the UN Human Rights Council: Changes Documented During US Membership, 2009-2015

At the end of 2015, the United States completed its second consecutive three-year term as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, the intergovernmental body created in 2006 to replace the Commission on Human Rights. In an effort to review the effect of US membership on the Council’s performance, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights has periodically documented the number of country-specific resolutions adopted by the Council, the special sessions convened by the Council on country-specific human rights crises, and the number of independent “special procedures” created by the Council to investigate country-specific and thematic human rights issues.  These are a number of areas to which the US has devoted substantial attention during its time on the Council.

While there remain many aspects of the Council’s performance that states should continue to work to improve, and while the Council still devotes a highly disproportionate degree of its country-specific action to Israel, JBI’s review reveals that US engagement has had a number of beneficial effects on the Council’s performance. 

The procedural rules of the Council require the US, and any other State that has served two consecutive three-year terms, to remain off of the Council for one year before it will be eligible for membership again. During 2016, when the US is off the Council, JBI urges the United States to use its substantial influence in Geneva to appeal to current members of the Council to continue the positive trends its engagement brought about. Such trends included a noticeable increase in the number of resolutions that address human rights abuses in particular countries. JBI also encourages the US to take action to ensure the Council’s credibility and professionalism, both with respect to its treatment of Israel and other key issues.  We also encourage the US to act on the commitment it has made to seek re-election to the Council for another three-year term from 2017-2019. The elections for this term of Council membership will take place at the UN General Assembly in October 2016.

JBI’s detailed documentation and analysis of trends over time, as well as background information, can be found in the full analysis below.

 

20th Anniversary of Beijing Women’s Conference: JBI Director Featured in New Film Account

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Women’s Conference, the women’s leadership platform “Makers” produced “Once and for All,” a documentary film that tells the story of the pivotal conference that recognized women’s rights as human rights. The filmmakers identified 20 women who helped the conference become a reality, including JBI Director Felice Gaer, and a clip about her is available here and below. More information, and a link to the full film can be found here.

As a public member of the US delegation, Gaer played a key role, working closely with US Ambassador Geraldine Ferraro and others, to negotiate and gain support for language affirming women’s rights as human rights, and ensuring violence against women was addressed as a human rights violation, requiring monitoring of abuses and accountability of perpetrators.

Connected to this, Gaer wrote a widely cited article entitled “And Never the Twain Shall Meet? The Struggle to Establish Women’s Rights as International Human Rights,” published by the American Bar Association in a 1998 volume entitled The International Human Rights of Women: Instruments of Change. You can find the article here.

 

UN General Assembly Poised to Designate December 9 as the International Day to Memorialize Victims of Genocide

On September 11, the United Nations General Assembly is expected to adopt a resolution (UN Document A/69/L.88) that will designate December 9 as a day to remember and honor all victims of genocide. The adoption by the UN General Assembly of this draft resolution, and its creation of an international day for prevention of genocide and the memorialization of its victims, will send a clear message to the world that the international community is united in its resolve to confront the horrors of past genocides and to take more effective action to prevent it in the future. 

The General Assembly is taking this step at the recommendation of the UN Human Rights Council, which called on the GA to designate this international day in a resolution (28/34) introduced by Armenia at its March 2014 session. The full title of the memorial day will be “International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime.”

JBI welcomes the proposal to create an annual occasion for the United Nations to remember all those who have perished in past genocides and to assess the effectiveness of efforts by the UN and its Member States to prevent this crime.  We also welcome the attention it will direct to the Genocide Convention, as JBI has long pressed for universal ratification of this important treaty, to which 146 of the UN’s Member States are parties.  The proposed commemorative date, December 9, marks the anniversary of the 1948 General Assembly resolution adopting the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. 

Since its founding in 1971, JBI has supported efforts to prohibit the crime of genocide in law and to identify the early warning signs of genocide and has urged the UN and its Member States to take action to prevent genocide and punish perpetrators of the crime. In particular, JBI has long advocated for universal ratification of the Genocide Convention.  In 2001, on the eve of the centenary of the birth of Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jewish legal scholar who coined the term “genocide” and drafted much of the Genocide Convention, JBI published An Epitaph for Raphael Lemkin, a monograph by Dr. William F. Korey.  At a launch event held at the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan acknowledged Lemkin, who had never been previously recognized by the UN, as “one of the unsung heroes of the international human rights movement.”

Today, JBI also supports the work of the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, the first UN post to explicitly address and advise UN leadership on genocide-related issues. In 2008, at the request of the Special Adviser, JBI began its Genocide Prevention Project (GPP) aimed at the central goal of deepening the world’s understanding of what it means to “prevent genocide” and when the presence of patterns of human rights violations triggers States’ responsibility to engage in preventive action. JBI’s Manual on Human Rights and the Prevention of Genocide, published in April 2015, is the most recent publication to result from this project.  JBI also supports the UN’s Holocaust Remembrance Program and the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day activities carried out at the UN General Assembly and through the UN Department of Public Information.

New JBI Publication: Manual on Human Rights and the Prevention of Genocide

At an event on genocide prevention at UN Headquarters yesterday, Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Genocide Prevention Adama Dieng, and Ambassador Eugene-Richard Gasana, Permanent Representative to the UN of Rwanda joined an audience of over 100 diplomats and human rights experts in welcoming a new publication by the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI). The archived webcast of the event is available here.

  The publication, a Manual on Human Rights and the Prevention of Genocide is available here.

Beijing+20: Looking again at violence against women

To mark the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Beijing World Conference on Women (Beijing plus 20) during the current session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women,  JBI’s director Felice Gaer writes when and why private violence against women has become an issue of concern to States parties to the Convention against Torture on the blog of the World Organization against Torture.   

The blog post is available here.

Country-Specific Scrutiny by the UN Human Rights Council: Changes Documented Since US Membership Began [2015 Update]

At the end of 2015, the United States will complete its second consecutive three-year term as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, the intergovernmental body created in 2006 to replace the Commission on Human Rights.  In an effort to review the effect of US membership on the Council’s performance, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights has periodically [1] [2] documented the number of country-specific resolutions adopted by the Council, the special sessions convened by the Council on human rights crises, and the number of special procedures created by the Council to investigate country-specific and thematic issues.  These are a number of areas to which the US has devoted substantial attention during its time on the Council.

While there remain many aspects of the Council’s performance that States should continue to work to improve, and while the Council still devotes a disproportionate degree of its country-specific action to Israel, JBI’s review finds that US engagement has had beneficial effects on the Council’s performance.  During the remainder of its second term, the United States should continue its efforts by pressing Council members to convene special sessions on emerging human rights crises whenever they occur and by proposing (and encouraging others to put forward) resolutions that identify by name those responsible for serious human rights violations worldwide.  It should also continue efforts to ensure the Council’s credibility and professionalism, including with respect to Israel.

JBI’s detailed documentation and analysis of trends over time, as well as background information, can be found in the full analysis below.