Human Rights Commission
A Charade of Bullies Feigning Decency
by Stanley A. Weiss

WASHINGTON--While the international community was distracted by accusations of human rights violations in the West Bank, an outrage with global repercussions recently unfolded at the annual session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Some of the world's most brutal dictatorships are making a mockery of the world's highest human rights body. How tainted is today's commission? Just compare its membership against the ranking of democracies published annually by independent, nonprofit Freedom House, based in New York. Of the commission's 53 member nations, 29, or 55 percent, are rated only partly free or not free by Freedom House, meaning that they have little or no respect for basic civil liberties or political rights.

The commission, which is intended to "examine, monitor and publicly report" human rights abuses, includes such not-free regimes as Communist China, with its criminal record on human rights and violent repression of religious minorities.

There are Congo and Algeria, whose security forces regularly torture and murder civilians with impunity. And Communist Vietnam, which continues to stamp out any hint of dissent.
And there is partly-free Russia, whose forces in Chechnya have killed thousands of civilians, left hundreds of thousands homeless and been accused of widespread rape and torture. Of the 10 regimes ranked worst by Freedom House, half - Fidel Castro's Cuba, Moammar Gadhafi's Libya, female-oppressing Saudi Arabia, slave-trading Sudan and terrorist-supporting Syria - have seats on the commission.

How did these habitual abusers come to dominate the body designed to police them? Blame the complex dynamics of the United Nations, which too often put politics above principle. As in all UN bodies, membership on the commission is based on regional quotas - 15 seats for Africa, 12 for Asia, and so on. A nation's human rights record is not a criterion. In most cases, regions decide who will represent them during three-year terms. Only when a region offers more candidates that it has seats does something like a real election occur, by secret ballot of the 54-member UN Social and Economic Council, which oversees the commission.

It was this secret vote that booted the United States out last year for the first time since the commission's founding in 1947. The 21 nations of the so-called Western European and Other Group had offered four candidates for three seats. (The United States recently regained its seat for the 2003-2005 period.)
Meanwhile, the African bloc selected Libya and Algeria, and the Asian bloc selected Saudi Arabia and Syria.

The commission's recent session in Geneva in some cases followed the old practice of shaming by naming - for example, highlighting abuses by Iraq and Cuba. But the real shame was vote after vote in which an alliance of abusers united to defeat condemnations of their own miserable behavior. For the first time in two decades, the commission voted not to criticize Iran for its record of religious and political persecution. Among the 20 commission members providing cover for the Islamic Republic were fellow oppressors Saudi Arabia, Libya and Pakistan, joined by China and Cuba. An Iranian diplomat called the vote a "great victory."

Russia was spared criticism of its brutal Chechnya campaign, thanks to the support of China, Syria and Cuba - dictatorships which then joined in repeatedly condemning the West Bank incursions by Israel.

Instead of watching for abuse, members once again watched one another's backs. Nigeria, which stands accused of massacring thousands of its citizens in recent years, voted to prevent debate on Chinese abuses. China, in turn, backed a Nigerian motion to prevent condemnation of Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwe strongman who rigged his March re-election after violently repressing political opponents.

President Jiang Zemin then traveled to Nigeria to express China's gratitude for the African regime's help in protecting "the legitimate rights and interests of the developing world."
Nigeria took the lead in persuading the commission to end the regular human rights monitoring of its neighbor Equatorial Guinea, known for torturing and imprisoning opponents of the ruling regime. That was just weeks after the two nations resolved a long dispute over their maritime border and access to the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea.

Acknowledging allegations of the commission's "increased politicization," the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, called on members to engage in "deep reflection." African members reflected, then granted a seat to Zimbabwe.

Robinson warned delegates as they left Geneva that "if the commission is not able to act for the protection of those whose rights are being violated on a massive scale," it would "lose its essence."

If the United Nations is to realize the lofty goals of its founders, prying this important human rights body out of the bloody hands of the world's worst abusers would be a good place to start.

The writer is founder and chairman of Business Executives for National Security. The views he expresses are his own.