For
the past eleven years the organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC),
representing the 57 Islamic States, has been tightening its grip on the
throat of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On 28th March 2008,
they finally killed it.
With the support of their allies including China, Russia and Cuba (none
well-known for their defence of human rights) the Islamic States
succeeded in forcing through an amendment to a resolution on Freedom of
Expression that has turned the entire concept on its head. The UN
Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression will now be required to
report on the “abuse” of this most cherished freedom by anyone who, for
example, dares speak out against Sharia laws that require women to be
stoned to death for adultery or young men to be hanged for being gay, or
against the marriage of girls as young as nine, as in Iran.
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan saw the writing on the wall three
years ago when he spoke of the old Commission on Human Rights having
become too selective and too political in its work. Piecemeal reform
would not be enough. The old system needed to be swept away and replaced
by something better. The Human Rights Council was supposed to be that
new start, a Council whose members genuinely supported, and were
prepared to defend, the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
Yet since its inception in June 2006, the Human Rights Council has
failed to condemn the most egregious examples of human rights abuse in
the Sudan, Byelorussia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and elsewhere, whilst
repeatedly condemning Israel and Israel alone.
Three years later Annan’s dream lies shattered, and the Human Rights
Council stands exposed as incapable of fulfilling its central role: the
promotion and protection of human rights. The Council died yesterday in
Geneva, and with it the Universal Declaration of Human Rights whose 60th
anniversary we were actually celebrating this year.
There has been a seismic shift in the balance of power in the UN system.
For over a decade the Islamic States have been flexing their muscles.
Yesterday they struck. There can no longer be any pretence that the
Human Rights Council can defend human rights. The moral leadership of
the UN system has moved from the States who created the UN in the
aftermath of the Second World War, committed to the concepts of
equality, individual freedom and the rule of law, to the Islamic States,
whose allegiance is to a narrow, medieval worldview defined exclusively
in terms of man’s duties towards Allah, and to their fellow-travellers,
the States who see their future economic and political interests as
being best served by their alliances with the Islamic States.
Yesterday’s attack by the Islamists, led by Pakistan, had the subtlety
of a thin-bladed knife slipped silently under the ribs of the Human
Rights Council. At first reading the amendment to the resolution to
renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression
might seem reasonable. It requires the Special Rapporteur: To report
on instances in which the abuse of the right of freedom of expression
constitutes an act of racial or religious discrimination …
For Canada, who had fought long and hard as main sponsor of this
resolution to renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, this was too
much.
Canada’s position was echoed by several delegations including India, who
objected to the change of focus from protecting to limiting freedom of
expression. The European Union, the United Kingdom (speaking for
Australia and the United States), India, Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala and
Switzerland all withdrew their sponsorship of the main resolution when
the amendment was passed. In total, more than 20 of the original 53
co-sponsors of the resolution withdrew their support.
On the vote, the amendment was adopted by 27 votes to 15 against, with
three abstentions.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights died with the vote. Who knows
when, or if, it can ever be revived.
I used to wonder what States who felt it necessary to kill people
because they change their religion thought they were doing in the Human
Rights Council. Now I know.
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