JBI Human Rights

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.

UN Security Council adds North Korea to agenda, holds first formal discussion of human rights violations

The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) welcomed the decision of the UN Security Council today to add the situation in North Korea to its agenda and to hold its first-ever formal discussion of the severe human rights violations perpetrated by the government.

The Security Council's action today demonstrated overwhelming acknowledgement by its members that the widespread, systematic human rights abuses perpetrated by the North Korean government for decades constitute a threat to international peace and security and are a legitimate concern of the Security Council. The Council's decision followed the adoption by other UN intergovernmental bodies of resolutions condemning the North Korean government's unparalleled brutality, as documented in the February 2014 report of the Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), an independent body created by the UN Human Rights Council. In resolutions adopted by large margins at the Human Rights Council in March and at the UN General Assembly on December 18, UN Member States endorsed the findings of the Commission of Inquiry and called on the UN Security Council to consider them as well.

The Security Council meeting today began with a procedural vote by the Council's 15 members on the question of whether to add the situation in North Korea to its agenda, without prejudice to the existing agenda item on North Korea in the context of non-proliferation. The decision was adopted with the support of eleven of the Council's fifteen members, and over the objections of China and Russia. It was not subject to a veto, as it concerned a procedural matter.

Following the vote, Council members were briefed on the situation in North Korea by representatives of the UN Department of Political Affairs and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. During the discussion that followed, several Permanent Representatives voiced their horror at the scale and severity of the abuses documented by the Commission of Inquiry, among them its finding that up to 120,000 North Korean citizens remain in incommunicado arbitrary detention in a political prison camp system in which gross human rights abuses are regularly committed.

In her remarks, US Ambassador Samantha Power raised the case of Kim Young-soon, a former detainee in one such political prison camp, who testified that she and other prisoners were deliberately subjected to near starvation by prison camp authorities. Reflecting on the gravity of these abuses, which the Commission of Inquiry found to amount to crimes against humanity, Ambassador Power and several other Security Members stressed the need for the Security Council to consider referring the situation in North Korea to the International Criminal Court. At the same time, Member States stressed the need for the Security Council to receive regular briefings on the human rights situation in the future, based on information gathered by the UN special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, Marzuki Darusman, and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which will open a field office in Seoul, South Korea in March 2015. Member States also called on the North Korean government to curb its abuses, beginning by closing its political prison camps, and to provide unfettered access to the country to human rights monitors and humanitarian groups.

JBI has long called on UN Member States and agencies to devote greater attention to North Korea’s appalling human rights record and to press the regime to curb its widespread violations (see past posts on these efforts here (UNSC discussion), here (UNGA resolution), here (Commission of Inquiry report), and here (conference calling for creation of Commission of Inquiry)). In recent weeks, JBI worked in close collaboration with other human rights groups, including the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), to advance the findings and recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry report at the UN General Assembly and Security Council. JBI and HRNK's joint activities included facilitating meetings in New York between diplomats and North Korean former political prisoners Mrs. Kim Young-soon and Mr. Jung Gwang-il, providing them with an opportunity to share their personal experiences and to stress to UN Member States the importance of promptly implementing the Commission of Inquiry's recommendations.

JBI Calls for UN Security Council to Consider the Situation of Human Rights in North Korea

JBI, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), and eight other leading human rights groups wrote today to members of the UN Security Council, urging them to formally discuss the human rights situation in North Korea in the Council without delay.  The full text of the letter appears below.

The letter expresses support for a December 5 request made by ten Security Council members for the situation in North Korea to be formally placed on the Security Council’s agenda and for the Security Council to be briefed on the situation in North Korea as early as possible in December.