What's in a name? Following the inauguration of the new UN Human Rights Council in place of the old Commission on Human Rights, Dina Ezzat tries to find an answer It was a big event at the Palais des Nations in Geneva Monday. With UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Louise Arbour and Jan Eliasson, current chair of the UN General Assembly and foreign minister of Sweden, the newborn Human Rights Council was inaugurated to much praise before an audience of international diplomats and amid unmistakable scepticism on the part of some Third World countries and a number of human rights activists. Optimists, judging by statements made in the opening session, are hoping that the new 47- member council will successfully promote true concepts of freedom worldwide away from the cruel calculations of political interest that dogged the now defunct and discredited 53- member UN Human Rights Commission it replaces. Pessimists, who are by no measure in the minority, are concerned, as many indicated while talking to Al-Ahram Weekly, that the new council will be unable to overcome the shortcomings of its predecessor -- in essence, being under the thumb of the key political powers to the cost of aspired-to universal human rights. The new council "must be a clean break from the past", Annan told the opening session Monday. "The eyes of the world, especially the eyes of those whose human rights are denied, threatened or infringed, are turned towards this chamber and this council," he stated. Other keynote speakers of the opening session expressed equal enthusiasm to make the new council better than the dissolved commission. Both Arbour and Eliasson stressed growing awareness around the world of the need for an effective mechanism to promote human rights and to stand firm in the face of violations many acknowledge are at a shockingly high level. Optimists underline the potential of the new council by pointing out that secret ballot majority in the UN General Assembly elects members of the new council and that a country's membership can be suspended if it is implicated gross human rights violations. Even they, however, agree that the election of member states itself is unlikely to deter governments already violating human rights. For their part, critics argue that the new council, which meets for a little over two weeks before it goes into recess, opening again towards the end of the year, is starting off on the wrong foot in the absence of a clear understanding of its tasks. "The fact of the matter is that there is no agreement on the agenda. That is due to differences between the interests of developed countries, who wish to focus solely on matters of political rights and civil liberties, and developing countries, who wish to see more attention paid to socio-economic rights," commented Nazar Abdelgader, executive director of the Geneva Institute for Human Rights. Along with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there are two authoritative international covenants governing human rights: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both adopted by the UN in 1966. For most Western countries, especially the US who has not joined the latter covenant, it is political, rather than the socio-economic, rights that matter. "We hope that the new council will not fall in the trap of over-politicisation and that there will be an understanding that different regions and different countries have different priorities... notwithstanding the universality of the concepts of human rights," argued Sameh Choukri, permanent representative of Egypt to the UN in Geneva. Having pursued membership of the UN Peace Building Committee, Egypt did not present its candidacy for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. However, in coordination with the seven Arab countries on board -- which joined as part of the regional representation of both African and Asia -- Egypt is acting to ensure that the council follows a balanced agenda. "This is the way to make it work," Choukri affirmed. Elected 9 May by the UN General Assembly, Tunis, Algeria, Morocco, Dijbouti, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon and Jordan, are on the Human Rights Council for one year. Some Geneva-based diplomats of these countries' missions are concerned that the battle to secure a balanced Human Rights Council agenda will not be easy. They argue that there is declining interest in championing rights to development and independence and that some members of the council seem determined to avoid serious discussion -- or even any discussion at all -- on thorny issues like the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. Such issues are deemed "political", and much of the agenda of the new Human Rights Council is to avoid past "politicisations". Since many countries, especially of the Third World, have expressed concern over politicisation in the council, settling the agenda has proved difficult. Human Rights diplomats who sat in on early closed meetings said there is no agreement on what is political and what isn't. "Since the new council is affiliated to the UN General Assembly, and not to the UN Economic and Social Council as was the case with the former Commission on Human Rights, the council is by definition being taken onto a politicised plateau", argues Counsellor Mahy Abdel-Latif of the Egyptian mission in Geneva. Abdel-Latif was swift to add that membership of the new council, however, should not be considered a licence to intervene in the internal affairs of some Third World countries. The US -- the country whose intentions many most worry about -- is not sitting on the council, having refused to tender its candidacy, publicly opposing the constitution of the new council. According to Luis Alfonso de Alba of Mexico, chairman of the outgoing Commission on Human Rights, the situation is tricky. "If we really want to concentrate on building a stronger institution, we need to avoid confrontation as much as possible... but we cannot avoid issues." The disputed agenda of the council is not the only concern for the future of the new UN body. There is also debate over the presidency, at least for this year. Agreement is lacking as to whether the presidency should remain within the Latin America group that presided over the burial of the Commission on Human Rights or if it should now go to a new grouping given that the council is a new body and is supposed to be making a fresh start. There is also an absence of agreement on the rules of procedure of the new council. According to Abdelgader, "there will be nothing new." He explained that for the council to be effective "it should have included representatives of governments, concerned non-governmental organisations and national institutions, like the Human Rights Council of Egypt, which act as a bridge between the governments and non-governmental bodies. We should have had them represented on one- third basis for each. But in the absence of this formula, I think the new council will not be significantly different from the commission." For now, festivities celebrating the new council are taking precedence. "Let us keep faith and hope that the commitment demonstrated to the cause of human rights will be manifested in the work of the new council," Ban Ki-Moon, foreign minister of South Korea and Soeul's candidate for the post of the UN secretary-general, told the Weekly following his participation in one of the new body's opening sessions. The inauguration of the Human Rights Council was marked in Geneva by a new postal stamp and a special watch by Swatch. "I look at my watch and I believe that it is time for us to be moving on so as to be in good time for 21st century standards of human rights," Annan commented.
