JBI Human Rights

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 Welcomes Release of Senate Study on CIA Detention and Interrogation Program and Calls for Further Reforms

The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) welcomes the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s publication today of the executive summary of a study of the detention and interrogation program carried out by the CIA from 2001- 2009. 

JBI has long called for the public release of the Committee’s study, in keeping with its commitment to ensuring that counterterrorism measures are effective and consistent with human rights and civil liberties.  In May 2013, for example, JBI called for the declassification and prompt release of the entire 6,700-page report. 

JBI deeply regrets the report’s findings.  In particular, the report finds that the CIA brutally interrogated and held detainees in extremely harsh conditions of confinement that were “far worse than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others.”  It finds inaccurate the CIA’s repeated claims that these brutal interrogation techniques were necessary to acquire “otherwise unavailable” actionable intelligence that “saved lives.”  

We welcome President Obama’s statement in response to the release of the report that the practices it documents “were not only inconsistent with our values as a nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests” and “did significant damage to America’s standing in the world.”  We welcome his pledge to “make sure we never resort to those methods again.” 

We also appreciate the personal conclusion reached by Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein in the foreword to the report released today, echoed on the Senate floor by Senator John McCain, that some of these brutal interrogation methods documented in the report amounted to torture.  JBI has repeatedly expressed unequivocal opposition to the use of torture by interrogators representing our nation.  We have also called on the United States to fully comply with its international human rights obligations under the UN Convention against Torture and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  In November and March 2014, respectively, the independent expert committees that oversee the implementation of these two treaties evaluated the record of the United States.  Both committees called for the publication of the Senate committee report and for the United States to ensure that abuses revealed in the reports are effectively investigated.   

JBI called on members of the Senate and the Executive Branch to take steps in response to these troubling findings in order to ensure that the United States never again violates its domestic and international obligations to prevent and prohibit torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.  

Said JBI Director Felice Gaer, “I commend the release of this report as well as the statements made today by Senators Feinstein and McCain affirming the need for steps to be taken to ensure that its appalling findings – that the US government failed to prevent the use of torture by those acting in its name, as well as to detect and eliminate it promptly – will spur meaningful reforms to ensure that such actions are never again taken.”

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

The United States is now well into 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 to date, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights has periodically reviewed 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.

To date, this review has continuously found that in the years that the US has served on the Council, the body’s criticism of countries by name on human rights grounds has substantially increased.  The Council’s criticism of an increasing number of violator States has not only strengthened its legitimacy; it has decreased to a certain degree the Council’s highly disproportionate focus on the conduct of a single UN Member State, Israel. 

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.  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 the perpetrators of 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. 

JBI Expert Roundtable on North Korea: Follow-up to the Commission of Inquiry

After the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry report (COI) on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) was released, JBI brought a number of experts on the country together with diplomats and representatives of non-governmental organizations on February 27, 2014 to discuss the extensive and unprecedented COI report and how it might be received and implemented at the United Nations. The meeting paid special attention to the inter-governmental bodies, agencies, programs and Secretariat based in New York, which received unusual attention in the report’s recommendations.

As discussion on the follow up to the COI gets underway at the Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, JBI has released a summary of the meeting and the viewpoints and suggestions made under the Chatham House Rule. Key points are summarized below, and the complete summary is available here.

The Commission of Inquiry’s report provides a sweeping analysis of the depth and breadth of rights abuses being inflicted upon the North Korean people over decades. It contains detailed descriptions and testimonies with evidence of longstanding crimes. With the publication of this report, the Commission of Inquiry, a UN mechanism, has officially recognized the severe and systematic crimes that have been ongoing in North Korea for the past 60 years. In doing so, the report eliminates the possibility for any in the international community to claim ignorance of the situation there.

To maintain the momentum generated by the COI report, and elevate its status, States can take some of the steps outlined below in their relations with other States, at the UN and with the broader public.

• While formulating a long-term response to the human rights situation in North Korea, States can take measures to signal that “business as usual” is no longer an option for governments or the UN following the publication of the COI report, which found there were systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations amounting to crimes against humanity whose “gravity, scale and nature … reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.” The COI report provided unprecedented detail on a wide range of issues including the right to food.

• The Human Rights Council’s annual resolution on North Korea offers the first and key venue for explicitly endorsing the COI’s recommendations and findings, in particular that crimes against humanity are being committed. At a minimum, the Human Rights Council’s resolution should offer a means of continuing fact-finding and analysis on human rights in North Korea in 2014 and beyond. The resolution is expected to be adopted at the end of March 2014.

• Members of the Security Council should identify avenues in which to discuss the findings and recommendations of the COI. The Security Council previously has only discussed North Korea in the context of its development and testing of nuclear and ballistic weapons; any Security Council discussion of the human rights abuses perpetrated by the government would represent a significant step forward.

• The text of the General Assembly’s annual resolution on North Korea can be strengthened so that, at a minimum, it specifically endorses the COI’s findings.

• While a consensus was considered important to maintain at the Human Rights Council and General Assembly, it might become necessary to take a vote on the resolutions so that the COI’s new findings and the report itself will be clearly reflected in the resolutions.

• Member States should encourage discussions to reflect on the application of the Secretary-General’s “Rights Up Front” action plan to the context of North Korea and how it should mesh with other concepts and priorities, including claims for humanitarian space and access, disarmament and security concerns, and geopolitical dynamics. This would ensure that the UN Secretariat and UN agencies take the COI report into account in their work.

JBI Calls for Release of Baha'i Leaders Unjustly Imprisoned in Iran

With the release of a new State Department report on religious freedom around the world, the U.S. government revealed the shocking fact that 116 members of the Baha’i faith are unjustly imprisoned in Iran solely for their beliefs. Among them, sadly, are seven prominent Baha’i leaders unfairly incarcerated since 2008.

Prior to their arrest, the two women and five men ranging in ages from 40 to 80 — Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli and Vahid Tizfahm — worked together to attend to the basic spiritual needs of Baha’is in Iran such as marriages, divorces and Baha’i children’s spiritual education. After five years of confinement, it is time for members of the international community to demand an end to this injustice.

In an effort to call attention to the plight of the Baha’is in Iran, members of the United States Congress introduced legislation on March 12, S.Res.75 and H.Res.109 condemn the state-sponsored persecution of Iran’s 300,000-member Baha’i minority, which contravenes Iran’s international obligations as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other international instruments. Additionally, the resolutions call on the president and secretary of State to demand the immediate release of prisoners held solely on account of their religion and to sanction Iranian officials directly responsible for serious human rights abuses, including abuses against the Baha’i community in Iran.

Burma: New Publication Outlines Needed Law Reforms

The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI), together with partners Perseus Strategies and New Perimeter, launched a new report presenting an in-depth assessment of rule of law reform needs in Burma.  Key Burma experts, U.S. and other policymakers attended the launch at a meeting in Washington DC on March 5.  As noted in The Irrawaddy and Trust Law, the discussion focused on reforming Burma’s Constitution, and the incorporation of international human rights standards and civil society participation in the rule of law reform process.  In line with these recommendations, on March 20 the Burmese parliament agreed to create a commission to review the controversial 2008 Constitution.

Burma is transitioning from 50 years of military rule marked by rights abuses to a more democratic government.  In the past two years, Burma has released Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest and registered her National League for Democracy political party, which won 43 of 45 available seats in April 2012 parliamentary by-elections.  Other reforms include the release of approximately 800 political prisoners (although many were conditionally released); decreased restrictions on the internet and media; the establishment of a new National Human Rights Commission; and signing of preliminary ceasefire agreements with several ethnic armed groups. 

The Rule of Law Assessment Report (the “Assessment”) identifies needs and responses that would expedite the rule of law reform process required in Burma to ensure that transition continues.  It presents an overview of initial and needed reforms, encouraging integration of universal human rights principles in the rule of law reform process, and providing guidance and recommendations to all those who will engage with local actors in Burma.  This will allow international actors to help move the law reform process from the current state where promises are made by Burma to the international community to one where reforms are implemented in Burma both on paper and in practice.  

Country-specific scrutiny by the UN Human Rights Council: Changes documented since US membership began

The 22^nd regular session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva marks the beginning of the United States’ second consecutive three-year term as a member of the intergovernmental body created in 2006 to replace the Commission on Human Rights.  In an effort to review the effect that US membership on the Council has had to date, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights has reviewed of the “country-specific” resolutions adopted by the Council, the country-specific special sessions held by the Council, and the number of country-specific and thematic special procedures created by the Council since its establishment.  This is one of a number of areas to which the US has devoted substantial attention during its first term on the Council.

The findings of this review are that in the three years that the US has served on the Council, the body’s criticism of countries by name on human rights grounds has substantially increased.  The Council’s criticism of an increasing number of violator States has not only strengthened its legitimacy; it has decreased to a certain degree the Council’s highly disproportionate focus on the conduct of a single UN Member State, Israel. 

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.  JBI concludes that the United States should continue its efforts in its second term of membership, by pressing Council members to convene special sessions on emerging human rights crises and by proposing and encouraging the tabling of resolutions that identify the perpetrators of serious human rights violations worldwide by name.  It should also devote further 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.

Advocacy for International Religious Freedom and Human Rights

A new volume of essays analyzing strategies of advocacy for international religious freedom has recently been published by The Review on Faith & International Affairs (Fall 2012).  It examines diverse approaches by a wide range of actors and from different perspectives.  One article, "'If Not Now When?': Jewish Advocacy for Freedom of Religion" by JBI Director Felice Gaer, examines Jewish advocacy for international religious freedom and related human rights from the Holocaust and the founding of the United Nations to current times, using this advocacy to uphold universal human rights standards.

Gaer argues that Jewish advocacy for freedom of religion and related human rights has been indelibly shaped by the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were annihilated, as well as by the experiences of expulsion, discrimination, and violence against Jews throughout the millennia.  The most prominent and successful particularist Jewish advocacy effort was the movement for Jews to be allowed to depart from the Soviet Union.  Efforts by Jewish organizations and advocates to advance religious freedom are also anchored in and directly influenced by universal elements in Judaism that value all human life and call for equality for all before the law, which has translated into support for efforts that guarantee universal human rights through bodies like the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).  As part of the interplay between the universal and the particular, Jewish advocacy has also reflected a sense of what is possible – a realism about how to achieve the idealistic goals of religious freedom and related human rights.  The strategy remains that by defending and respecting each individual’s rights, all will flourish and be protected. 

JBI Human Rights Papers: Human Rights in Iran

The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) published a new advocacy briefing note on Human Rights in Iran, part of a new series of JBI Human Rights Papers.

Since it seized power in 1979, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been engaged in committing a range of human rights violations against the Iranian people.  During and since the violent crackdown surrounding the June 2009 flawed presidential elections, Iran’s widespread and systematic pattern of human rights violations has intensified and increased.  Iranian authorities admit to arresting more than 4,500 protesters during the crackdown and a death toll of 37.  Many protestors were subjected to violations of due process, arbitrary arrest, detention and torture.  These and other tactics have been used to silence human rights defenders, political opponents, journalists and lawyers, and to discriminate against women, and religious, ethnic and other minorities.