The UN's top human rights forum began what could be its final
session ever, but the gathering was suspended immediately to give
governments time to reach a deal on its replacement.
Peruvian Ambassador Manuel Rodriguez Cuadros brought down his
gavel to end the meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission after
just four minutes of purely procedural statements.
On Friday, Rodriguez Cuadros and member governments of the
53-nation commission agreed to put their annual six-week session on
ice for a week because all 191 members of the UN General Assembly
had still been unable to reach consensus on setting up a new UN
Human Rights Council.
"The system of protection of human rights of the United Nations
faces a situation of exceptional importance," Rodriguez Cuadros
told the meeting on Monday.
Critics say that the commission, which was created in the late
1940s, has lost its way amid political horsetrading, that it is
tarnished by the presence among its member states of notorious
human rights abusers, and that it fails to tackle violations by
powerful countries.
The General Assembly is expected to meet at UN headquarters in
New York this week to try to find its way out of the impasse over
the creation of the council.
A draft text already on the table there has broad support among
member states but is opposed by the United States.
The draft calls for the council to have 47 members, elected by
secret ballot by an absolute majority of the UN's 191 members. The
panel would meet three times a year for a minimum of 10 weeks.
But Washington says that the current proposal would simply
perpetuate the faults of the commission.
"It would be too easy for countries that are habitual violators
of human rights to get onto the Human Rights Council," Kevin Moley,
the US Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, told reporters.
"We're not interested in rearranging the deckchairs on the
Titanic. The commission has been a failure," he said.
The United States wants a smaller body whose members would be
elected by a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly, and has
indicated that it would prefer a delay of months in addressing the
issue.
It was not immediately clear if the commission session in Geneva
would go ahead as scheduled from March 20 if the General Assembly
failed to strike a deal in New York over the coming week.
(Chinadaily.com via agencies March 14, 2006)
