Human Rights Council Election Results

The results of the election of the United Nations' new Human Rights Council are in. The good news is that and Venezuela were rejected, in the secret ballot voting. The bad news is that some rights abusers, such as Azerbaijan, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia, all identified by Human Rights Watch as unworthy of membership on the new U.N. body, did win seats on the Human Rights Council.

The new Human Rights Council replaces the discredited Commission on Human Rights. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that the Commission on Human Rights "cast a shadow on the reputation" of the UN, because countries that practiced widespread abuses against citizens, such as Sudan and Zimbabwe, were members. The once farce as abusive states vied for membership to protect themselves and their cohorts from condemnation.

Election to the Human Rights Council required 96 votes in the General Assembly, and was based on a geographic distribution. Africa and Asia each got 13 seats; Latin America and the Caribbean, eight; the U.S. and Western Europe, seven, and Eastern Europe, six.

The members of the new Human Rights Council include:

African States:

Algeria, Cameroon, Djibouti, Gabon, Ghana, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia and Zambia

Asian States:

Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka

Eastern European States:

Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation and Ukraine

Latin American & Caribbean States:

Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay

Western European & Other States: Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and United Kingdom

A summary of the voting for membership on the Human Rights Council is available here.

I have little hope that the Human Rights Council can even aspire to achieve anything like the accomplishments of the early days of the Commission on Human Rights. Under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, the Commission drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Later, it prepared international standards on torture, “disappearances” and executions, and assisted the victims of apartheid and the dictatorial regimes of Latin America.

Unfortunately, the Commission become a farce as abusive states sought and achieved membership to protect themselves from criticism.