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THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL:

REFORM OR REGRESSION?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN 

RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 6, 2006

Serial No. 109–221

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman 

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, 

Vice Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

PETER T. KING, New York 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado 

RON PAUL, Texas 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

JERRY WELLER, Illinois 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

THADDEUS G. MCCOTTER, Michigan 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

TOM LANTOS, California 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel 

ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL

OPERATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, 

Vice Chairman 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

MARY M. NOONAN, Subcommittee Staff Director 

GREG SIMPKINS, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member 

NOELLE LUSANE, Democratic Professional Staff Member 

SHERI A. RICKERT, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member and Counsel 

LINDSEY M. PLUMLEY, Staff Associate 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mark Lagon, Ph.D., Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International 

Organization Affairs, U.S. Department of State ............................................... 9

Ms. Erica Barks-Ruggles, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, 

Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State ....................................... 16

Mr. Brett Schaefer, Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs, 

The Heritage Foundation .................................................................................... 35

Mr. Hillel C. Neuer, Executive Director, United Nations Watch ........................ 44

Ms. Jennifer Windsor, Executive Director, Freedom House ................................ 66

Morton H. Halperin, Ph.D, Executive Director, Open Society Policy Center ..... 71

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Human Rights and International Operations: Prepared statement ................ 5

Mark Lagon, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ............................................................... 12

Ms. Erica Barks-Ruggles: Prepared statement ..................................................... 19

Mr. Brett Schaefer: Prepared statement ............................................................... 38

Mr. Hillel C. Neuer: Prepared statement .............................................................. 47

Ms. Jennifer Windsor: Prepared statement ........................................................... 68

Morton H. Halperin, Ph.D.: Prepared statement .................................................. 73

APPENDIX 

Material Submitted for the Hearing Record .......................................................... 87

(1)

THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS 

COUNCIL: REFORM OR REGRESSION? 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2006, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS

AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS, COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o’clock p.m. in 

room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. 

Smith (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. I am pleased to convene this hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations. Today we will be examining issues related to the new 

United Nations Human Rights Council, which held its first session 

from the 19th to the 30th of June, and two special sessions in July 

and August, respectively. 

I believe that it is tragic and dismaying in the extreme to note 

that despite the self-congratulatory euphoria of last March at its 

creation, the new human rights machinery remains broken, in need 

of serious repair and fundamental reform. The Human Rights 

Council has, thus far, continued the credibility deficit of its predecessor. The victims of abuse throughout the world deserve better. 

And, thus far, they haven’t gotten it. 

Not only did the Council unfairly and myopically, in my opinion, 

criticize Israel at its inaugural session, but both special sessions 

convened to date—on July 5–6 and August 11—were held exclusively to condemn Israel with nary a mention of egregious abuse 

by Hezbollah or Hamas or the roles of Syria and Iran. 

Amazingly, there has been no special session on the ongoing—

and worsening—genocide in Darfur. No special session on the systematic use of torture by the People’s Republic of China, or even 

though Manfred Nowak, the UN’s own rapporteur on torture last 

December issued a scathing report on the pervasive use of torture 

by the Chinese Government; no special session on Cuba’s abuse of 

political prisoners or on Burma or on North Korea or Belarus or 

Iran or Zimbabwe. Just Israel. 

Not only has the Council expended all of its efforts on Israel, but 

it has also failed to do so in a fair and equal manner. The Council 

has made no reference to the roles, as I indicated, of Hamas, 

Hezbollah, Syria or Iran in the creation of the situation concerned 

or to the harm inflicted by parties other than Israel. Thus, the 

early evidence indicates that the Council has already been co-opted 

by an extremely biased and narrow agenda. 

2

This development is of extreme concern, both for the international human rights community and for those of us convinced of 

the need for reform at the United Nations. The Human Rights 

Council, and through it the United Nations as a whole, have a vital 

role to play in the promotion and protection of human rights. It is 

critical that the United States and other human rights defenders 

do everything, and as quickly as possible, to reverse the direction 

in which the Council is heading. 

By way of background, on April 19, 2005, this Subcommittee held 

a hearing on the Council’s predecessor, the UN Commission on 

Human Rights. In my statement at that hearing, I noted that the 

Commission had come under increasing criticism from numerous 

quarters. A UN High-Level Panel concluded in December 2004 that 

the Commission’s capacity to fulfill its mandate had been undermined by eroding credibility and professionalism. The panel pointed out that states with a poor human rights record cannot set the 

standard for human rights. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan later 

agreed with this assessment, and he told the Commission that, 

‘‘Unless we re-make our human rights machinery, we may be unable to renew public confidence in the United Nations itself.’’ On March 15, 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution that replaced the discredited Commission with the Human 

Rights Council. The General Assembly gave the Council the mandate to promote ‘‘universal respect for the protection of all human 

rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction of any 

kind and in a fair and equal manner,’’ and to ‘‘address situations 

of violations of human rights, including gross and systematic violations.’’ The United States, as we know, was one of four countries to vote 

against the resolution. The U.S.’s opposition was based on the absence of a stronger mechanism to maintain credible membership, 

and thus the lack of an assurance that the Council would be an improvement over its predecessor. 

In my public statements issued immediately after the resolution’s 

adoption, I expressed by deep disappointment that the General Assembly had settled for a weak and deeply flawed replacement for 

the Commission. The flaws I noted included the membership concerns expressed by the United States, as well as the lack of protection for Israel from unfair and biased special sessions, which now 

we have seen are happening. 

Another potentially serious flaw that I have noted is the Council’s mandate to promote follow-up to the goals and commitments 

related to the promotion and protection of human rights emanating 

from UN conferences and summits. My concern is based in large 

part on the serious distinction that exists between human rights 

treaties and consensus documents resulting from UN conferences. 

Treaties are negotiated by UN member states, and they may or 

may not be subsequently ratified through the established approval 

process of each country. Those states that do ratify a treaty thereby 

agree to be bound by its provisions under international law. 

UN conference documents, on the other hand, are the result of 

policy debates and are agreed to by consensus at the end of the 

conference. These consensus documents are not negotiated as legally-binding instruments and are not subjected to a ratification 

3

process. They do not have, and should not have, the same legal authority as treaties. 

For this reason, the UN General Assembly was extremely misguided when it assigned the Human Rights Council the task of promoting these conference commitments. By doing so, it threatens to 

diminish the moral and legal persuasiveness of internationally-recognized human rights by equating them with mere policy directives. 

Even more troubling, the resolution calls for the promotion of 

human rights emanating from UN conferences. The very word 

‘‘emanating’’ implies that a characteristic or action need not be 

clearly defined in a conference document in order for the Council 

to undertake its promotion. This, together with the fact that these 

conference documents are consensus documents, raises the specter 

that any number of characteristics or actions may slide their way 

into the international human rights framework without the ratified 

agreement of countries who would then be pressured to abide by 

their provisions. Such a gaping loophole in the international legal 

process is antithetical to the democratic ideals of our own country 

and to the principles on which the United Nations is based. 

This potential for gross abuse of the United Nations human 

rights mechanisms is already being realized with respect to the 

issue of abortion. For several years now, the Committee on the 

Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Human Rights 

Committee and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural 

Rights have been pressuring governments to legalize abortion even 

though no UN human rights treaty addresses the issue. 

These and other treaty bodies pursue this ideological agenda 

while ignoring the fact that abortion exploits women and is an act 

of violence against children. 

Just 2 weeks ago, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women published concerns about the illegality of 

abortion in Chile and the Philippines. In October 2005, the Human 

Rights Committee decided in a case from Peru presented to it 

under the ICCPR Optional Protocol that denying access to an abortion violates women’s human rights. It made no reference to the 

unborn child’s right to life and to be free from the terrifying effect 

of an array of child killing poisons, currently on the market, or dismemberment. 

Even the Committee Against Torture, which is responsible for 

monitoring compliance with the Convention Against Torture and 

Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, is 

joining this assault on unborn children. 

In February of this year, pursuant to its review of Peru’s compliance with the Convention, the committee concluded that Peru’s 

omission in failing to provide abortion constitutes cruel and inhuman acts. The committee has no basis in the Convention for challenging the state party’s refusal to provide an abortion. 

However, if one were to concede that the committee is warranted 

in examining the issue of abortion under article 16, then the committee would have no choice but to conclude that chemical poisoning and dismemberment of the fragile, sensitive body of an unborn child is a cruel and inhuman act. 

4

And I would also note parenthetically that we now know that unborn children feel pain from at least the 20th week onward—perhaps even earlier, which is why I have introduced into Congress 

the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, which is now pending in 

committee. 

In many of their decisions, these treaty bodies do not refer to the 

text of the treaty they are supposed to be monitoring, but to documents adopted at UN conferences, and again, they never take note 

of the statements of explanation or conditionality put on to their 

approval or their consensus by governments at the time of their 

adoption. They do so out of necessity since the countries that they 

are pressuring have never agreed to legalize or provide for the destruction of the life of an unborn child in the instruments that they 

have ratified. 

Based on this entrenched and growing manipulation of the UN 

human rights mechanisms to promote abortion, there is reason to 

believe that the Human Rights Council will also be co-opted into 

promoting ideological agendas at variance with the established 

human rights norms of the international community. 

Finally, the skepticism generally about the ability of the Human 

Rights Council to promote human rights and address human rights 

violations, and to do so in a fair and equal manner, has increased 

with the election of its members, and as I have indicated, subsequent activity. Although the General Assembly resolution states 

that its members must take into account the contribution of candidates to the promotion and protection of human rights, such notorious human rights abusers as China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia were 

elected to the Council. Since it began its work less than 3 months 

ago, the Human Rights Council has issued three country-specific 

resolutions, all of them targeting just one country. 

I therefore have convened this hearing to examine what needs to 

be done to prevent the Council from repeating or further regressing 

from the failures of the Commission on Human Rights, as well as 

to support any signs of improvement over its predecessor. The Subcommittee is interested in exploring how the Council is being assisted by the United States and others to fulfill its mandate, the 

areas in which further assistance and reform is required, and the 

standards that the Human Rights Council will need to meet in 

order to qualify as a credible international human rights body. 

In his address in April 2005 to the Commission on Human 

Rights, the UN Secretary-General argued for a new, reformed 

human rights Council on the basis that it would ‘‘allow for a more 

comprehensive and objective approach.’’ He went on to say, ‘‘it 

would produce more effective assistance and protections, and that 

is the yardstick by which it would be measured.’’

It is not too soon to start measuring the Council by this 

yardstick, and we look forward to hearing the testimony of our distinguished witnesses that will provide us with the means for such 

an evaluation. 

My good friend, Congressman Rohrabacher, has just joined us. 

Congressman, do you have any opening comments? 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]

5

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, A REPRESENTA- TIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY AND CHAIRMAN, SUB- COMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS

I am pleased to convene this hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Human Rights and International Operations. Today we will be examining issues related to the new United Nations Human Rights Council, which held its first session 

from the 19th to the 30th of June, this year, and two special sessions in July and 

August, respectively. 

I believe it is tragic, and dismaying in the extreme to note that despite the selfcongratulatory euphoria of many last March at its creation, the new human rights 

machinery remains broken, in need of serious repair and fundamental reform. The 

Human Rights Council has, thus far, continued the credibility deficit of its predecessor. The victims of abuse throughout the world deserve better. And, thus far, 

they haven’t gotten it. 

Not only did the Council unfairly and myopically criticize Israel at its inaugural 

session, but both special sessions convened to date—on July 5–6 and August 11—

were held exclusively to condemn Israel with nary a mention of egregious abuse by 

Hezbollah or Hamas or the roles of Syria and Iran. 

Amazingly, there has been no special session on the ongoing—and worsening—

genocide in Darfur. No special session of the systematic use of torture by the People’s Republic of China, even though Manfred Nowak, the U.N.’s own rapporteur on 

torture recently issued a scathing report on the pervasive use of torture by the Chinese government; No special session on Cuba’s abuse of political prisoners or on 

Burma or North Korea or Belarus or Iran or Zimbabwe. Just Israel. 

Not only has the Council expended all its efforts on Israel, but it has also failed 

to do so in a ‘‘fair and equal manner.’’ The Council has made no reference to the 

roles of Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran in the creation of the situations concerned or to the harm inflicted by parties other than Israel. Thus, the early evidence 

indicates that the Council has already been co-opted by an extremely biased and 

narrow agenda. 

This development is of extreme concern, both for the international human rights 

community and for those of us convinced of the need for reform at the United Nations. The Human Rights Council, and through it the United Nations as a whole, 

have a vital role to play in the promotion and protection of human rights. It is critical that the United States and other human rights defenders do everything, and 

as quickly as possible, to reverse the direction in which the Council is heading. 

By way of background, on April 19, 2005, this subcommittee held a hearing on 

the Council’s predecessor, the UN Commission on Human Rights. In my statement 

at that hearing, I noted that the Commission had come under increasing criticism 

from numerous quarters. A UN High-Level Panel concluded in December 2004 that 

the Commission’s capacity to fulfill its mandate had been undermined by eroding 

credibility and professionalism. The Panel pointed out that States with a poor 

human rights record cannot set the standard for human rights. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan later agreed with this assessment, and he told the Commission that 

‘‘unless we re-make our human rights machinery, we may be unable to renew public 

confidence in the United Nations itself.’’

On March 15, 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution that replaced 

the discredited Commission with the Human Rights Council. The General Assembly 

gave the Council the mandate to promote ‘‘universal respect for the protection of all 

human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction of any kind and 

in a fair and equal manner,’’ and to ‘‘address situations of violations of human 

rights, including gross and systematic violations.’’ The United States was one of four 

countries to vote against the resolution. The U.S.’s opposition was based on the absence of a stronger mechanism to maintain a credible membership, and thus the 

lack of assurance that the Council would be an improvement over its predecessor. 

In my public statement issued immediately after the resolution’s adoption, I expressed my deep disappointment that the General Assembly had settled for a weak 

and deeply flawed replacement for the Commission. The flaws I noted included the 

membership concerns expressed by the United States, as well as the lack of protection for Israel from unfair and biased special sessions. 

Another potentially serious flaw that I have noted is the Council’s mandate to promote follow-up to the goals and commitments related to the promotion and protection of human rights emanating from United Nations conferences and summits. My 

concern is based in large part on the serious distinction that exists between human 

rights treaties and consensus documents resulting from UN conferences. Treaties 

are negotiated by UN member states, and they may or may not be subsequently 

ratified through the established approval process of each country. Those states that 

6

do ratify a treaty thereby agree to be bound by its provisions under international 

law. UN conference documents, on the other hand, are the result of policy debates 

and are agreed to by consensus at the end of the conference. These consensus documents are not negotiated as legally-binding instruments and are not subject to a 

ratification process. They do not have, and should not have, the same legal authority as treaties. 

For this reason, the UN General Assembly was extremely misguided when it assigned the Human Rights Council the task of promoting these conference commitments. By doing so, it threatens to diminish the moral and legal persuasiveness of 

internationally-recognized human rights by equating them with mere policy directives. Even more troubling, the resolution calls for the promotion of human rights 

‘‘emanating’’ from the UN conferences. The very word ‘‘emanating’’ implies that a 

characteristic or action need not be clearly defined in a conference document in 

order for the Council to undertake its promotion. This, together with the fact that 

these conference documents are consensus documents, raises the specter that any 

number of characteristics or actions may slide their way into the international 

human rights framework without the ratified agreement of countries who would 

then be pressured to abide by their provisions. Such a gaping loophole in the international legal process is antithetical to the democratic ideals of our own country and 

to the principles on which the United Nations is based. 

This potential for the gross abuse of the United Nations human rights mechanisms is already being realized with respect to the issue of abortion. For several 

years now, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the 

Human Rights Committee and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural 

Rights have been pressuring governments to legalize abortion even though no UN 

human rights treaty addresses the issue. These and other treaty bodies pursue this 

ideological agenda while ignoring the fact that abortion exploits women and is an 

act of violence against children. Just two weeks ago, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women published ‘‘concerns’’ about the illegality of 

abortion in Chile, Mauritius and the Philippines. In October 2005, the Human 

Rights Committee decided in a case from Peru presented to it under the ICCPR Optional Protocol that denying access to an abortion violates women’s human rights. 

It made no reference to the unborn child’s right to life and to be free from the terrifying effect of an array of child killing poisons currently on the market or dismemberment. 

Even the Committee against Torture, which is responsible for monitoring compliance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading 

Treatment or Punishment, is joining this assault on the unborn. In February of this 

year, pursuant to its review of Peru’s compliance with the Convention, the Committee concluded that Peru’s ‘‘omission’’ in failing to provide abortion constitutes ‘‘cruel and inhuman acts.’’ The Committee has no basis in the Convention for challenging a state party’s refusal to provide an abortion. However, if one were to concede that the Committee is warranted in examining the issue of abortion under Article 16, then the Committee should have no choice but to conclude that the chemical poisoning and dismemberment of the fragile, sensitive body of an unborn child 

is itself a ‘‘cruel and inhuman act.’’ (And now we know that unborn children feel 

pain at least at 20 weeks gestation—perhaps earlier, which is why I have introduced the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act.) 

In many of their decisions, these treaty bodies do not refer to the text of the treaty they are supposed to be monitoring, but to documents adopted at UN conferences. 

They do so out of necessity, since the countries they are pressuring have never 

agreed to legalize or provide for the destruction of the life of the unborn in the instruments that they have ratified. Based on this entrenched and growing manipulation of the UN human rights mechanisms to promote abortion, there is reason to 

believe that the Human Rights Council will also be co-opted into promoting ideological agendas at variance with the established human rights norms of the international community. 

The skepticism generally about the ability of the Human Rights Council to promote human rights and address human rights violations, and to do so in a fair and 

equal manner, has increased with the election of its members and subsequent activity. Although the General Assembly resolution states that its members must take 

into account the contribution of candidates to the promotion and protection of 

human rights, such notorious human rights abusers as China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia were elected to the Council. Since it began its work less than three months ago, 

the Human Rights Council has issued three country-specific resolutions, all of them 

targeting just one country. Such egregious and long-time human rights abusers as 

Sudan, China, Cuba, Burma, Iran, North Korea, Zimbabwe and Belarus have not 

even been mentioned on the agenda. 

7

I therefore have convened this hearing to examine what needs to be done to prevent the Council from repeating or further regressing from the failures of the Commission on Human Rights, as well as to support any signs of improvement over its 

predecessor. The Subcommittee is interested in exploring how the Council is being 

assisted by the United States and others to fulfill its mandate, the areas in which 

further assistance and reform is required, and the standards that the Human Rights 

Council will need to meet in order to qualify as a credible international human 

rights body. 

In his address in April 2005 to the Commission on Human Rights, the UN Secretary-General argued for a new, reformed human rights council on the basis that 

it would ‘‘allow for a more comprehensive and objective approach. And ultimately 

it would produce more effective assistance and protections, and that is the yardstick 

by which we should be measured.’’ It is not too soon to start measuring the Council 

by this yardstick, and we look forward to hearing the testimony of our distinguished 

witnesses that will provide us with the means for such an evaluation.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. First and foremost, I would like to thank 

Congressman Smith for not only this hearing, but all of his activities that are aimed at alerting the American people to the reality 

of the United Nations and the challenges that we face internationally. 

There are so many people in the United States that because of— I have to call an overwhelming public relations campaign on the 

part of the United Nations—have an inaccurate view as to just 

what the reality of the United Nations is all about, and Congressman Smith has done more to try to alert us to the realities of— to the limitations of that organization because if we mistakenly 

place our faith in an organization that is a facade, and that instead 

whose flaws weigh down its own capabilities of doing good, we will 

pay the price, and there already has been the price paid in Africa 

and elsewhere where hundreds of thousands of people have lost 

their lives because we have erroneously relied on the United Nations to do what was right. 

We have to always be aware that a significant number of members of the United Nations, the UN member states, are controlled 

by criminal cliques. They are not only non-democratic, many of 

these countries are authoritarian and run by criminals. These people run rough shod over their own people, and they have learned 

also how to make sure that they are using their influence on organizations like the United Nations to protect their positions in their 

own country rather than having the United Nations as a force for 

democratization and liberalization. Of course no where is that more 

evident than the hypocrisy that is seen in what was the United Nations Commission for Human Rights, and now I guess what is 

called the United Nations Council on Human Rights. 

But words are irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not we 

have a standard of truth and justice that is a standard not based 

on some sort of political accommodation with a solitarian regime, 

which so often happens in the United Nations. 

So I would like to thank Representative Smith for his leadership, 

and I am glad to participate today and look forward to the testimony. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH. Chairman Rohrabacher, thank you very much for 

your kind comments, and for your extraordinary work in investigating, whether it be the Oil-for-Food scam or any of the other 

egregious mistakes that have been made by the United Nations. 

You have been a real leader. 

I would like to yield to Dr. Boozman. 

8

Mr. BOOZMAN. Just very briefly. I just want to thank you for 

holding the hearing, and look forward to the witnesses. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Fortenberry. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Mr. Chairman, thank you as well for focusing 

our efforts today on the United Nations Human Rights Council. I 

appreciate your hard work that went into this hearing, and the efforts to keep the issue of human rights central to the work of this 

Subcommittee and to our consideration of United Nations reform. 

I also look forward to hearing from our distinguished witnesses 

and commend you for your work to keep our Government cognizant 

of the duty we have to provide fundamental justice and to uphold 

human dignity for the people subject to the Commission’s authority, especially for the world’s most vulnerable and marginalized 

persons. 

I believe that it is critical for the UN Human Rights Council to 

diligently and objectively uphold the principles enshrined in the 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and while I fully understand the concerns which led the United States to vote against the 

resolution to replace the widely discredited Human Rights Commission with the Council, I am confident that we remain vigilant in 

our cooperation with Council members in an observer capacity to 

further our nation’s longstanding commitment to an authentic and 

credible human rights agenda in the United Nations. 

It is also my understanding that the United States may consider 

running for the Council in 2007, and I am eager to hear your testimony and the assessment of the various witnesses today as to 

whether ‘‘reform’’ or ‘‘regression’’ best describes the Council’s activities to date, and how you would envision the prospects for future 

U.S. participation in the Council. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Fortenberry. 

I would now like to introduce our distinguished panel, beginning 

with Dr. Mark Lagon, who is Deputy Assistant Secretary of State 

for International Organization Affairs. In his capacity he has broad 

responsibility for policy development and administration, especially 

within the UN’s human rights policy. Dr. Lagon previously served 

as member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff where 

he focused on UN and international organizations, democracy, 

human rights, and public diplomacy. 

Then we will hear from Ms. Erica Barks-Ruggles, who is Deputy 

Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. As 

a career member of the Foreign Service, she focuses on policy, programming, multilateral and global affairs. Ms. Barks-Ruggles has 

also previously served with the policy and planning staff of the Political Economics Section of the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway, and 

has been an International Affairs Fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Dr. Lagon, please proceed. 

9

STATEMENT OF MARK LAGON, PH.D., DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. LAGON. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, it 

is a pleasure to be here with you again to discuss the UN Human 

Rights Council, and thank you very much for holding this hearing. 

President Bush has proclaimed that at this critical time in the 

history of freedom no nation can evade the demands of human dignity, and countries like Iran, North Korea, Belarus, Burma, Syria, 

Zimbabwe and Cuba, governments must become accountable to 

their citizens and embrace democracy. Much work remains to be 

done if the new Council is to live up to its noble calling and actually advance these goals. 

I appreciate the opportunity to help present the Administration’s 

views on the Human Rights Council and I look forward to hearing 

the views from the highly regarded witnesses in your second panel. 

I have to say I consider Jennifer, Brett and Hillel all valuable partners. 

My bureau, the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, is 

responsible for policy related to the institutional workings of multilateral organizations. My good friend and colleague Erica BarksRuggles as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, works to promote human rights in 

multilateral organizations, particularly in country-specific cases. 

The United Nations Charter specifically called for the creation of 

a Commission for the promotion of human rights establishing it as 

one of the founding proprieties of the United Nations. With the 

leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, the Commission on Human Rights 

is one of the first two functional Commissions set up at the UN. 

In its early days, that Commission successfully negotiated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which for the first time defined international standards and understanding of human rights. 

In the intervening years, however, the clarity of purpose was lost 

as countries responsible for serious human rights abuses sought 

and obtained membership on the Commission on Human Rights in 

order to prevent criticism of their own records. In recent years, 

Sudan was elected and re-elected to the Commission. Libya was 

chosen as Chair of the Commission on Human Rights, despite the 

United States calling a vote, breaking a precedent of the past of 

there never having been votes called, and the United States was 

defeated in a re-election bid for the first time. 

Mr. Chairman, you and I were out at the last full session of the 

Commission on Human Rights, and we were working together, and 

I would venture to say that neither of us was surprised by the 

state of the pathologies of the Commission, and saddened that we 

weren’t surprised anymore. 

In the face of those pathologies, Secretary-General Annan called 

for reform of the human rights machinery in his report last year, 

in ‘‘Larger Freedom.’’ That report stated, ‘‘The Commission on 

Human Rights created a credibility deficit which casts a shadow on 

the reputation of the UN system as a whole,’’ and he called on 

member states to replace it. 

The resolution creating the Council was crafted over the course 

of several months of negotiations in New York. The United States 

10

had two major touchstones that it was focused on. One was improving the body’s membership through two essential means: Requiring 

election of members by two-thirds of member states present and 

voting, and barring the membership of countries such to Security 

Council sanctions, sanctions related to human rights or the promotion of terrorism. We needed to make sure that the Commission 

on Human Rights (CHR) successor was populated by fire fighters, 

not arsonists. 

Unfortunately, the negotiated text did not include these criteria. 

We ultimately called for a vote and voted ‘‘no’’ on the resolution on 

March 15 of this year in the General Assembly. The Secretary-General, as you have referred to, set the goal of creating a body that 

was definitively better than the Commission on Human Rights. We 

felt that an historic opportunity had been squandered for creating 

a definitively better body, in fact, with the acquiescence of some of 

our high-minded friends in the world who were willing to settle for 

good enough. 

The new 47-member Council is a subsidiary organization now of 

the General Assembly rather than the 54-member Economic and 

Social Council. Its members are elected by the whole UN membership now, rather than just 54 nations in the Economic and Social 

Council. So, the benefit is that while the country could have been 

elected to the Commission with 26 votes or even fewer, depending 

on how many showed up to the ECOSOC election, now the resolution creating the Human Rights Council does require 96 votes at 

a minimum for election to the Human Rights Council. In addition, 

all countries elected to the Council are voted on individually, not 

part of a regional slate as had occurred before. 

There is an important difference between the former Commission 

and the new Council related to its composition. When the body became a subsidiary of the UN General Assembly, it was decided to 

give the Council the same geographic distribution of seats as in the 

mother body, the General Assembly. This had the effect of increasing the number of African, Eastern European, and Asian members, 

regions with countries with mixed records on human rights. 

The percentage of countries from the Western European and 

other group, and the Latin American and Caribbean group declined. 

This is significant because many of the African and Asian countries tend to favor economic, social and cultural rights over political 

and civil rights. These regional groups have historically sought to 

eliminate country-specific resolutions, which the United States has 

considered crucial as a tool on human rights. 

The current composition of the Council has also given the Organization of the Islamic Conference greater influence, allowing it to 

focus disproportionately on the Israel/Palestinian conflict at the expense of other troubling situations around the globe. My colleague, 

Erica Barks-Ruggles, will address some of these implications of the 

composition of the Council in practice. 

I do want to note some positive developments as we saw in the 

May election. Most regions presented candidates, more candidates 

than open slots, providing options from which to choose. Some of 

the worst human rights abusers, such as Sudan and Zimbabwe, 

11

chose not to risk losing and didn’t run, and some troublemakers 

ran and lost; notably Iran and Venezuela. 

Additionally, a provision in the resolution creating the Council 

allows for suspension of the membership of a state that commits 

gross and systematic violations of human rights with a two-thirds 

vote of the General Assembly, of the Council if the membership of 

the Council has the political will to pursue that. 

Procedurally, the Council will meet for no less than 10 weeks a 

year in no fewer than three sessions, so that there is not one oncea-year predictable theatrical session as existed with the Commission on Human Rights. The Council also explicitly has the ability 

to convene special sessions when it is needed to address urgent situations. 

I delivered a formal intervention during the negotiations in New 

York to create the Council, calling for multiple prudent triggers for 

special sessions. I requested the majority of the members of the 

Human Rights Council or a call by the Secretary-General for a special session or a call by the High Commissioner for Human Rights. 

Unfortunately, other nations didn’t follow our advice and one 

trigger was created with a rather low bar—a third of the membership of the Council wanting to have a special session. This low bar 

has allowed some members of the Council to push through two special sessions focused on Israel. Although we lament the grossly unbalanced focus on Israel during the early days of the Council, we 

are going to strive to protect this mechanism of special sessions to 

deal with what it was designed to deal with: The most morally 

troubling situations on multiple continents. 

The Council is engaged in two important processes: Developing 

a universal periodic review mechanism and reviewing all its mandates from the previous Commission. In open-ended consultations, 

which is the UN-speak for ‘‘open to all nations,’’ including observer 

states, to be full participants, there are negotiations of both of 

these things. 

We believe the Universal Periodic Review ought to be a peer review process in which states take responsibility, but are fully open 

to NGOs and human rights experts to give information and shine 

a light on the record of countries. 

Second, we seek to ensure that nations are judged in this Universal Periodic Review only on the basis of the treaties that they 

have ratified. We should think about that in terms of those the 

United States has ratified. 

Third, we would like to see review of all UN member states occur 

within 5 years and be conducted between the sessions of the Council. We don’t want to allow this Universal Periodic Review to crowd 

out time spent on important technical assistance to transitioning 

government or frank condemnations of heinous abusers. 

In the first year of the Council, it is also reviewing the so-called 

special procedures and rapporteurs inherited from the Commission 

on Human Rights. Our mission in Geneva is fighting to preserve 

those special rapporteurs that are devoted to individual countries, 

and those important ones that are devoted to political and civil liberties while seeking to diminish the number of thematic mandates 

related to economic, social and cultural rights that are of questionable merit. 

12

In particular, those rapporteurs are devoted to particular places 

like Belarus, Burma, Cuba, North Korea and Sudan. They add to 

the scrutiny offered the international community of the worst 

human rights abuses in the world, and they need to be sustained. 

I just want to say a word about an important tool of the Office 

of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which is to be distinguished from the elected body of member states of the Human 

Rights Council. 

The Council will rely on the Office of the High Commissioner for 

Human Rights to do actual field work to protect and promote 

human rights around the world. We want to see enhancements to 

the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, or 

OHCHR, to have the capacity to deploy human rights monitors 

rapidly to crisis spots, to boost significantly the number of nonemergency staff in the field, to increase technical assistance and 

training in countries around the world, and to dispatch fact-finding 

missions. 

The OHCHR should focus its resources on strengthening its field 

offices, which offer tangible help rather than building up a 

bureaucratized think tank in comfortable Geneva. 

The Secretary-General and the High Commissioner for Human 

Rights rightly said that in the creation of the Commission the era 

of norm setting, of developing new treaties and passing lofty rhetorical statements should be succeeded by an era of implementing 

human rights on the ground. The United States welcomes this approach. 

We understand fully that you as Members of the Subcommittee 

are concerned that the new Human Rights Council is not a real improvement over the Commission on Human Rights. We share these 

concerns. Many of the Council’s collective decisions so far have 

been troubling. There is still opportunity to improve the Council’s 

membership and to give it mechanisms that really promote human 

rights. The United States will work hard with our partners in the 

days and weeks ahead to bring a truly improved body. 

Now I am delighted to turn to my colleagues to discuss how the 

Council has performed to date. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lagon follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARK LAGON, PH.D., DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, 

BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to be with you again today to discuss the UN 

Human Rights Council. Thank you for holding this hearing to consider recent developments in the UN Human Rights Council, as we move toward the next session. 

We deeply appreciate the Committee’s interest and concern, and commend you for 

your focus on human rights. 

President Bush has proclaimed that, ‘‘at this critical time in the history of freedom, no nation can evade the demands of human dignity. In countries like Iran, 

North Korea, Belarus, Burma, Syria, Zimbabwe, and Cuba, governments must become accountable to their citizens and embrace democracy.’’ It is essential that the 

new UN Human Rights Council do everything it can to achieve these goals, as it 

is one of the primary institutions mandated to protect human rights worldwide. The 

United States is committed to improving this United Nations body, although unfortunately the new Council’s sessions so far have been disappointing. Much work remains to be done if the new Council is to become an improvement over its discredited predecessor, and we will work to make this United Nations body live up to its 

noble calling. 

I appreciate the opportunity to present the Administration’s views on this new 

body and look forward to hearing the views from the highly regarded witnesses in 

13

the second panel. They are valued colleagues and deeply committed to promoting 

freedom and democracy and UN reform. 

My bureau, the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, is responsible for 

policy related to the institutional working of multilateral organizations, and in that 

role, we work to make the UN human rights machinery as effective and strong as 

possible. My good friend and colleague, Erica Barks-Ruggles, is a Deputy Assistant 

Secretary of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and works 

to promote human rights within multilateral organizations, particularly in countryspecific cases. 

History of UN Human Rights Machinery 

The United Nations was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War, to 

help prevent conflicts and assist nations in meeting the needs and aspirations of 

their people and to protect their human dignity. The United Nations Charter specifically called for the creation of a Commission for the promotion of human rights, 

thereby establishing this function as one of the United Nations’ founding priorities. 

Indeed, with the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, the Commission on Human Rights 

was one of the first two functional commissions set up at the UN. In its early days, 

the Commission successfully negotiated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 

which for the first time defined international standards and understanding of 

human rights. This history demonstrates the importance the UN placed on the promotion of human rights in its early years. 

Need for Reform of the Machinery 

In the intervening years, however, that clarity of purpose was lost as countries 

responsible for serious human rights abuses sought and obtained membership on 

the Commission in order to prevent criticism of their own records. By 2001 through 

2004, the UN’s record on promoting human rights reached its absolute nadir. While 

trouble in Darfur escalated, Sudan was elected and re-elected to the Commission on 

Human Rights. Unable to block Sudan’s re-election, the U.S. delegate walked out 

of room in protest. During this period, Libya was chosen as the Commission’s Chair, 

notwithstanding a U.S. call for a vote on what is normally a consensus decision. 

Further, a number of other countries—including Zimbabwe—joined Cuba and other 

abusers as members of the Commission to prevent criticism of their own records. 

Also in 2001, the United States was defeated in its bid for re-election to the Commission, for the only time in its history. The organization Reporters Without Borders described the situation best; saying the members of the Commission had become both ‘‘judges and defendants.’’ You and I, Mr. Chairman, were in Geneva at 

the same time last year. We were working together to advance human rights at the 

last full session of the Commission, all the while saddened because its pathologies 

no longer surprised us. 

In the face of these pathologies, Secretary General Annan called for the reform 

of the UN human rights machinery in his 2005 report on overall UN reform, ‘‘In 

Larger Freedom.’’ This report stated that the Commission created ‘‘a credibility deficit . . . which casts a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as 

a whole’’ and called on Member States to replace the discredited Commission. Thus 

began a long, complex process to create the new Council. 

Membership Criteria for New Body 

The resolution creating the Council was crafted over the course of several months 

in New York. The U.S. called for improving the body’s membership through two essential means: requiring election of members by two-thirds of UN Member States 

present and voting, and barring the membership of countries subject to UN Security 

Council sanctions, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, for human rights abuses 

or acts of terrorism. We needed to make sure that the CHR’s successor was populated by firefighters, not arsonists. Unfortunately, the negotiated text did not include these criteria and we ultimately called for a vote and voted ‘‘no’’ on the resolution establishing the Council. The Secretary General had set the goal of creating a 

body definitively better than the Commission. A historic opportunity was squandered, with the acquiescence of some of our high-minded friends who were willing 

to settle for ‘‘good enough.’’ The Human Rights Council was created in a vote of 170 

in favor, 4 opposed—the U.S., Israel, Palau, and the Marshall Islands—and three 

abstentions, by Belarus, Iran, and Venezuela. 

The new 47-member Council is now a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, 

rather than the Economic and Social Council, or ECOSOC. Its members are elected 

by all United Nations Member States, rather than just the 54 in ECOSOC. Hence, 

while a country could have been elected to the Commission with only 26 votes (and 

fewer if some ECOSOC members were not present and voting), by the terms of the 

resolution creating the Council, countries require a minimum of 96 votes for election 

14

to the HRC. In addition, an important improvement to the elections procedures in 

the Human Rights Council as compared to the Commission is that all countries 

elected to the Council are voted on individually, not as part of a regional slate, as 

occurred previously. 

Composition of Council 

Another important difference between the former Commission and the new Council, one which has greatly influenced the actions of the Council thus far, is its composition. The regional distribution of seats in the Council is patterned after the General Assembly rather than the previous allocation which existed at the Commission. 

The Commission’s membership contained a greater proportion of members from 

areas of the world that generally respect and promote fundamental freedoms and 

human rights: the Western European and Other Group—or WEOG—which includes 

the United States, and the Group of Latin America and the Caribbean—or GRULAC. However, when the General Assembly made the new Human Rights 

Council a subsidiary body, it decided to give the Council the same geographic distribution of seats as the General Assembly. This had the effect of raising the overall 

percentage of African, East European and Asian members, regions with mixed 

records on human rights, on the Council. At the same time, the percentage of countries from the Western Europe and Other Group and the Latin American and Caribbean Group declined. 

This is significant because many African and Asian countries tend to favor economic, social, and cultural rights over civil and political rights. These regional 

groups have historically sought to eliminate country-specific resolutions, which the 

U.S. has always considered a crucial human rights tool. And the current composition of the Council has also given the Organization of Islamic Conference greater 

influence, allowing it to focus disproportionately on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 

at the expense of other troubling situations around the globe. My colleague, Erica 

Barks-Ruggles, will further address the implications of this composition in practice. 

At the same time, I must note some positive developments. As we saw in the May 

election, most regions presented more candidates than positions, providing a slate 

of options from which to choose. Some of the worst human rights abusers chose not 

to risk losing and did not run—for example, Sudan and Zimbabwe,—and some international troublemakers ran and lost—notably Iran and Venezuela. Additionally, a 

provision in the resolution creating the Council allows for the suspension of the 

membership of a State that commits gross and systematic violations of human 

rights, with a two-thirds majority vote of the Council. If the UN membership shows 

the will to use it, this could be a potentially useful tool for the future (although the 

two-thirds threshold will be difficult to reach). 

Frequency of Meetings 

Procedurally, the Council will meet no less than 10 weeks per year in no fewer 

than three sessions. This is an improvement over the Commission’s once a year 

meeting which invariably turned into political theater. 

The Council also explicitly has the ability to convene special sessions when needed 

to address urgent situations, with the support of one-third of the Council members. 

This provision was designed to enable the body to respond quickly to developing 

human rights crises. I delivered a U.S. formal intervention during the negotiations 

in New York to create a Human Rights Council calling for multiple, prudent triggers for special sessions: a request of a majority of HRC members, or a call by the 

Secretary General or the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Unfortunately 

other nations didn’t follow our advice and insisted on one trigger with an imprudent 

low bar: one-third of the membership of the Council. 

Erica will discuss how this low bar, given the Council’s composition, the political 

climate and recent world events, led to the two first special sessions focusing on 

Israel. These sessions were a particularly disheartening early indication of the 

Council’s focus, and we will strive to reverse this trend. Although we lament the 

imbalanced focus on Israel during the early days of the Council, I want to emphasize that we will strive to protect the worthwhile mechanism of special sessions for 

appropriate situations in the future. We must preserve the Council’s ability to draw 

the world’s attention to the most morally troubling situations on a variety of continents. 

We will also look for opportunities—such as the mandatory five-year review of the 

Council’s status by the General Assembly—to review, and as needed revise, the 

Council’s structure and work. 

Council Mechanisms 

Two important processes are in development at the Council at this time: the establishment of a new Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism and the review 

15

of all mandates of the previous commission. In open-ended consultations taking 

place throughout the year, the U.S. is a full participant and our diplomatic mission 

is vigorously promoting the U.S. position. 

We believe that the Universal Periodic Review must be a real ‘‘peer review’’ process. Governments should run the UPR. Although the review sessions would ideally 

be open to the public, welcoming individual experts and civil society organizations 

to provide input to the process and observe the proceedings, it should be undertaken 

by and for States. Second, we seek to ensure that nations are judged solely on the 

basis of treaties that they have ratified. Third, we would like to the review of all 

UN Member States to occur within five years and be of limited expense, and so suggest that this work be conducted intersessionally to prevent it from precluding other 

important work of the Council. Our most important criterion for the UPR is that 

it should not be allowed to crowd out time spent in the Council on important technical assistance to transitioning governments or frank condemnations of heinous 

abusers. 

Meanwhile, as noted, in this first year the Council also is reviewing all special 

procedures from the Commission on Human Rights to improve upon and rationalize 

their work. Our objective is to maintain a system of special procedures, expert advice, and an individual complaint procedure. Our Mission in Geneva is fighting to 

preserve the Special Rapporteurs who examine country-specific situations and to reduce the number of thematic mandates that address economic, social, and cultural 

rights of questionable merit. These latter mandates were often designed to divert 

attention from basic freedoms. Mandates such as those in Belarus, Burma, Cuba, 

DPRK, and Sudan bring the deserved scrutiny of the international community to 

bear upon these regimes that have demonstrated little regard for the human rights 

of their citizens. This mandate review, therefore, is an opportunity for the Council 

to preserve what was good from the Commission, while breaking with its record of 

‘‘business as usual’’ on other topics. The special procedure mandates should have a 

real impact and improve human rights around the world. 

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 

An important tool to assist States is the Office of the High Commissioner for 

Human Rights. Because there is often a misunderstanding about this office, I would 

like to emphasize that the Human Rights Council—an elected body of UN member 

states—is separate and distinct from the OHCHR. However, the Council will rely—

as did the Commission—on the OHCHR to do the actual fieldwork needed to protect 

and promote human rights around the world. 

We believe the Office of the High Commissioner has the potential to make even 

greater contributions to the protection of human rights around the world. Technical 

assistance by the OHCHR can provide much-needed assistance to governments that 

seek help. Therefore, we want to see enhancements of OHCHR’s capacity for rapid 

deployment of human rights monitors to crisis spots, to boost significantly the number of non-emergency staff in the field, to increase technical assistance and training 

in countries around the world, and to dispatch fact-finding missions to trouble spots. 

It should focus increasing resources on strengthening its field offices, which offer 

tangible help, rather than building up a bureaucratized think tank in comfortable 

Geneva. 

Conclusion 

The Secretary General and High Commissioner for Human Rights said in the context of retiring the Commission and creating a Council that the era of norm-setting—or inventing treaties and passing lofty rhetorical statements—should be succeeded by an era of implementation of human rights. The United States welcomes 

this approach. 

Mr. Chairman, we fully understand that you and Members of this Committee are 

concerned about the new Human Rights Council and believe it may not end up 

being a real improvement over the Commission on Human Rights. We share these 

concerns. Many of the Council’s collective decisions have been troubling, even if the 

records of its individual members represent a slight improvement over those of the 

now defunct Commission. 

Still, the requirement for more votes to win a seat on the Council, new precedents 

such as individual voting for Council members, competitive regional slates for elections, and public pledges by candidates, offer some hope that the membership can 

be improved further in the future. And, as I described, new Council mechanisms 

such as the Universal Periodic Review are being established. They, too, may improve the Council’s record on promoting and protecting human rights. The United 

States will work hard with our partners in the days and weeks ahead to convert 

these hopes into the reality of a truly improved UN Human Rights Council. 

16

With that, I am delighted to turn the microphone over to my esteemed colleague, 

Erica Barks-Ruggles, to discuss how the Council has performed to date.

STATEMENT OF MS. ERICA BARKS-RUGGLES, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS 

AND LABOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ms. BARKS-RUGGLES. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, 

thank you for holding this hearing on the importance of a strong, 

credible, and capable Human Rights Council. 

Mr. Chairman, today I am delivering brief remarks but I ask 

that longer remarks be submitted for the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered. 

Ms. BARKS-RUGGLES. Thank you. 

This hearing, along with your involvement and those of your 

Committee Members, Mr. Chairman, demonstrates that the U.S. 

Congress wants the UN Human Rights Council to function as a 

protector of human rights. Secretary Rice agrees with you. She has 

stated, ‘‘The United States remains committed to supporting the 

United Nations’ historic mission to promote and protect human 

rights of all the world’s citizens’’ in her remarks when we decided 

not to run for the Human Rights Council as an explanation of that 

decision. 

I am pleased to join my colleague, Mark Lagon, today. Our bureaus work very closely together on the coordination of UN human 

rights policy in multilateral organizations. As Mark has discussed, 

the United States had two major objectives for reform of the deeply 

discredited Commission on Human Rights. The first was to improve membership. The second was to preserve its critical authorities, including its ability to address egregious violations of human 

rights. 

As he outlined, we have worked hard to create a worthy Human 

Rights Council, and even though we were unable to vote positively 

on the creation of the Council, we believed then, and we still believe, that we need to work hard to make this Council the strong, 

capable, and credible body that we all want it to be. Our history 

and the value we all place on supporting human rights around the 

world demand it, and the United States is committed to working 

with its allies to do just that. 

As Mark outlined, the Human Rights Council’s record so far has 

been mixed with regard to the improved membership. For example, 

the resolution creating the Council said the country should take 

into account a candidate’s human rights record when voting for its 

membership. The Council’s first elections were indeed interesting 

in this respect, breaking with traditions of the former Commission. 

In these elections, for the first time in UN history, candidate 

countries made public pledges to enforce human rights obligations 

and standards at home. Most also agreed that their record should 

be measured not only by their treaty obligations but by how they 

complied with their pledges. The U.S. did make a pledge even 

though we chose not to run. This is a significant step, but we are 

watching closely to see how countries deliver. More importantly, we 

will see how countries that do not deliver on their pledges are 

judged by fellow members. 

17

Further, as Mark outlined, a number of members of the Commission on Human Rights opted not to run for the new Council. For 

example, some countries with very troubling human rights records, 

including Zimbabwe, Eritrea, and notably Sudan, decided not to 

seek reelection. They may have doubted that they could get reelected individually to the new body instead of as part of a regional 

slate. They may also have preferred not to subject themselves early 

on to the scrutiny of the Universal Periodic Review, which Mark 

has outlined. 

In addition, members of geographic groups in the General Assembly exerted pressure on some of the member states to drop out 

of the race so that repressive regimes would not bring discredit to 

their region or to the Council. We hope that this sort of pressure 

is sustained in future elections. 

Further, as Mark noted, as several notorious human rights violating states—Iran and Venezuela amongst them—were defeated 

even though they chose to run. Regrettably, however, some serious 

human rights violators, such as Cuba and China, were elected to 

the Human Rights Council. It is deeply unfortunate. Taken as a 

whole, the record of the Human Rights Council members, however, 

is something of an improvement over the Commission. 

In the Commission, 28 percent of the members were ranked as ‘‘not free’’ in Freedom House’s annual rankings of political and civil 

liberties around the world. At the Council, that percentage has 

dropped to just below 20 percent. It is an improvement, but more 

needs to be done. 

As you know, the U.S. chose not to run. We did so for principled 

reasons having decided that given our ‘‘no vote’’ on the resolution 

creating the Council we should not run for membership in the 

body. Also, we felt that there were strong candidates in our regional group that would uphold the values that we would have also 

promoted on the Council. 

As I stated earlier, the other major U.S. priority for the Council 

was maintaining a strong mandate for its action. Our highest objective was to preserve the ability to address violations of human 

rights in individual nations. 

One of the Council’s essential tools in this regard is the ability 

to offer technical assistance. In urging human rights situations, the 

Council may prevent a crisis by offering advisory services, technical 

assistance and capacity-building to states. Such assistance can address country situations through dialogue and cooperation with the 

affected parties. The United States is in the process of conferring 

closely and actively with partners on the Council to identify such 

situations where such aid would be useful. 

Another tool that this Council has is the ability to call special 

sessions to discuss urgent human rights problems. The United 

States supported the concept of the special sessions in negotiations 

to create the Council, but argued, as Mark personally did, that the 

support of the majority of members should be required. The resolution, however, set out a requirement for the support of only onethird of the membership of the Council. 

Regrettably, the Human Rights Council has successfully called 

for two special sessions. The first took place July 5 and 6, and addressed the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian terVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:16 Nov 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\090606\29835.000 DOUG PsN: DOUG
18

ritories. The United States opposed the holding of this session 

which focused only on Israel while ignoring Hamas’s and Syria’s 

role and also overlooking the failure of the Palestinian Authority 

Government to dismantle terrorist infrastructure. 

The second special session occurred on August 11 on the situation in Lebanon. The United States also strongly opposed the holding of this session and the resulting unbalanced Human Rights 

Council resolution that focused only on the actions of Israel and ignored the actions of the Hezbollah that gave rise to the conflict. We 

have made clear to the countries that voted for the resolutions our 

serious concerns. 

We believe that the Human Rights Council must exercise its responsibility to promote and protect human rights evenhandedly 

and globally. The decisions to hold these two special sessions and 

the imbalanced resolutions that they adopted were regrettable. If 

used properly to address egregious human rights violations, however, the United States firmly believes that the special session 

mechanism can be a valuable tool in the promotion and protection 

of human rights. We are prepared to support calls for future special 

sessions where there are serious and emerging human rights 

abuses and we are actively discussing possibilities for such action 

with like-minded countries. 

Let me now describe one of the Council’s most important tools for 

use when a country refuses to cooperate with the Council and the 

international community. In such cases the Council retains the option of condemnatory resolutions. Such resolutions address egregious violations of rights and exhorts states to make immediate reforms to remedy violations. Condemnatory resolutions by the Commission in the past have assigned special rapporteurs to monitor 

situations and report back to the Council. Future Council resolutions could and should contain similar mechanisms to address 

abuses. 

The United States very much supports resolutions that call to account the worst violators of the universally accepted human rights 

and fundamental freedoms of their people, especially those that 

refuse to cooperate with the Council and the international community. We are actively conferring with friends on the Council about 

when to pursue condemnatory resolutions. 

We have held dozens of meetings with like-minded counterparts 

to press hard for calling to account the most egregious human 

rights violators. In Geneva just last week I held a series of meetings to press on this issue. Mark was in Geneva in April, May and 

July, and held similar meetings. 

Mr. Chairman, as Secretary Rice has said, the United States is 

committed to making the UN Human Rights Council strong and effective. This is essential because there are still repressive and 

blood-thirsty regimes that violate the fundamental human rights of 

their people and refuse the international community’s help. The 

UN must be able to hold a mirror up to them and speak truth to 

power. 

The mandate of this Council is clearly presented in its founding 

resolution text where UN member states decided, ‘‘that the Council 

should address situations of violations of human rights, including 

19

gross and systemic violations and make recommendations thereon.’’ We are working hard in a variety of ways to achieve that goal. 

The coming sessions and decisions of the Council will demonstrate whether the new body has the ability and more importantly, the political will to protect and promote human rights more 

effectively and fairly than its predecessor. The United States remains committed to making the Council strong and effective. The 

cause for freedom, democracy, and the victims of human rights 

abuses globally require our best effort. 

In the weeks and months ahead, I look forward to continuing to 

consult with the Members of this Committee, with your staffs, with 

our partners in the NGO community, and in the international community to undertake to make sure that the Human Rights Council 

executes its duties well and effectively. 

Thank you for your attention, and I would be happy to answer 

any questions, I am sure, along with my colleague. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Barks-Ruggles follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. ERICA BARKS-RUGGLES, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SEC- RETARY, BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND LABOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT

OF STATE

Chairman Smith and members of the Committee: Thank you for your support for 

a strong, credible and capable UN Human Rights Council, and thank you for making this hearing a priority in the Committee’s September schedule. We have been 

pleased to brief the Committee regularly on events at the Council, but recognize 

that a public hearing of this type sends an important signal that the U.S. Congress 

wants the UN Human Rights Council to function as a protector of human rights. 

Following the creation of the Council, Secretary Rice stated, ‘‘The United States 

remains committed to supporting the United Nations’ historic mission to promote 

and protect the human rights of all the world’s citizens.’’ She continued, ‘‘The 

United States will work cooperatively with other Member States to make the new 

UN Human Rights Council strong and effective. In particular, we must work to ensure that countries elected to the Council uphold the highest standards of human 

rights.’’ I am pleased to join my colleague Mark Lagon, from the International Organizations—or IO—bureau at this hearing. My bureau, Democracy Human Rights and 

Labor, or DRL, and IO work very closely and collaboratively together every day to 

coordinate U.S. human rights and democracy policy in multilateral organizations, so 

it feels very natural to be here together today. As he discussed, the United States 

had two major objectives for reform of the deeply discredited Commission on Human 

Rights. The first was to improve the membership. The second was to preserve the 

critical parts of its mandate, including its ability to review egregious violations of 

human rights and make recommendations to address those violations as needed. We 

worked hard for many months to create a worthy Human Rights Council, with a 

stronger membership and solid mandate. Mark has outlined for you the results of 

that effort. Disappointed as we were we believed then, and still believe, that it is 

worthy of our history and the value we place on supporting human rights around 

the world that we work hard to make this Council a strong, capable and credible 

body. 

There is much work to be done if the new Council is to become what we hope 

for—an improvement over its predecessor. The decisions of the new Human Rights 

Council to date have been disappointing. But we still have hope that the new Council can in fact be improved. We believe that the cause of freedom, democracy, and 

human rights defenders around the globe requires our best effort. Therefore, the 

United States remains committed to working with allies to improve the body. 

MEMBERSHIP

The record of the Human Rights Council is mixed with regard to the first goal 

of improving the membership. Some notorious serious human rights violators such 

as Sudan, Iran, and Zimbabwe are not members; but Cuba has retained its seat and 

enjoys a disproportionately influential role in the UN’s chief human rights body. 

And, as my colleague noted, the allocation of seats by region changed in the Council 

as compared to the Commission. There was a reduction in Western European and 

20

Other Group and Latin American seats. Meanwhile, over half of the HRC seats are 

occupied by African, Asian and Eastern European members, regions with mixed 

records on human rights. 

Mark has already noted that the elections for those seats were different than they 

had been in the Commission, with competitive, rather than agreed, slates of candidates from regional groups. The resolution creating the Council also stated that 

countries should ‘‘take into account’’ a candidate’s human rights record when voting 

for its membership. Countries thus began—for the first time in the history of the 

UN—to support their candidacies for the new body by making public pledges about 

how they would enforce human rights obligations and standards, both at home and 

abroad. By the day of the vote, most candidate countries had made public pledges, 

agreeing explicitly that their record should be measured not only by the obligations 

they had undertaken in international treaties, but also in these pledges. But making 

pledges is not enough—what counts is implementing them. We acknowledge the significance of this step, but the follow-up on these pledges—both in terms of what is 

delivered, and how those governments that do not measure up will be judged by 

their fellow members—will determine whether this is more than lip service. We will 

be watching closely. 

A number of countries also chose NOT to run for election to the Council. When 

the elections were held in 2006 to choose the states that would serve on the Council, 

a number of members of the Commission on Human Rights opted out of the race. 

Among the nations that did not run was, as you know, the United States. We did 

so for principled reasons, having decided that, given our decision to vote ‘‘no’’ on the 

resolution creating the Council, we should not turn around and run for membership 

on the body. Further, there were many strong candidates from our regional group 

running and we felt they should be given the opportunity to serve. 

At the same time, some countries with very troubling human rights records, such 

as Egypt, Eritrea, Guinea, Zimbabwe and—most notably—Sudan, decided not to run 

for re-election. Mr. Chairman, I doubt that they did so for the reason that the U.S. 

chose not to run: due to reservations about the legitimacy of the new body. Rather, 

we believe these countries chose not to run because they had doubts that they could 

be elected to the new, somewhat smaller and more selective body. They may also 

have preferred not to subject themselves to the scrutiny that they would receive 

under the new Universal Periodic Review. The resolution creating the Council stipulated that Council members would be subjected to that review before all others. 

In addition, members of geographic groups in the General Assembly exerted pressure on some States to drop out of the race. This was due to another reform adopted 

for the Council—the fact that members would be elected individually, rather than 

as part of regional slates. Member states urged repressive regimes not to bring discredit to their regions by running for the Council. Hopefully this sort of pressure 

will be sustained in future elections, and not just the historic first one. 

Regrettably, and despite all the changes I have outlined, some notorious human 

rights violators such as Cuba and China were still elected to the Human Rights 

Council. That is deeply unfortunate. But it is also true that the membership in the 

Human Rights Council improved in some respects on that which had prevailed on 

the Commission on Human Rights. In the Commission, a full 28% of the members 

were ranked at ‘‘not free’’ in Freedom House’s annual rankings of political and civil 

liberties around the world. At the Council, that percentage had dropped to less than 

20% of the total. 

In analyzing whether we succeeded in our objective of improving the membership 

of the UN’s premier human rights body, however, it is also important to review not 

just the individual records of its members, but also their collective aspirations and 

actions. And this is where we run into serious questions about the record of the 

Human Rights Council thus far. As Mark and I have described, more states from 

regions with mixed human rights records were elected to the Council. This increase 

has proven to be significant in the actions taken by the Council since its inauguration in June. In the new HRC only 16 members of the Human Rights Council are 

needed to call special sessions. Those 16 votes were easily mustered this summer 

as the Council called successfully for two special sessions on Israel in the first eight 

weeks of the Council’s existence. I will address our very serious concerns about 

those special sessions in a moment, as part of the discussion about the second important priority the United States established for the new Human Rights Council: 

giving it a strong mandate. 

MANDATE

Our highest priority for the mandate of the new Council was to preserve the ability to address violations of human rights in individual nations—particularly those 

21

with the most severe violations. The resolution creating the Council establishes the 

body’s authority to address violations in individual nations, and charges the Council 

with making recommendations on how to address such violations. The resolution 

does not go into great specifics about exactly how the Council can address violations, 

so I will describe the tools the United States considers essential in this effort. 

One of the Council’s essential tools is the ability to offer technical assistance. The 

Council has the authority to take action to address emerging human rights situations before they become crises, so in such circumstances, it may offer advisory services, technical assistance or capacity building to states. Such assistance can address 

country situations through dialogue and cooperation with the affected parties. The 

United States believes that this type of Council action complements the more 

confrontational option of condemnatory resolutions, and strongly supports cooperative assistance by the Council to states as well. After all, it is better to address 

human rights problems as they are beginning to emerge rather than when there is 

a full-blown crisis. As with the condemnatory resolutions, the United States is conferring closely and actively with its partners on the Council to identify situations 

where such action could be useful. 

And, as we have discussed, another tool that this Council has is the ability to call 

special sessions to discuss emerging human rights situations. The United States 

supported the concept of special sessions in the negotiation to create the Council, 

but argued that the support of a majority of Council members should be required. 

The resolution, however, set out a requirement for the support of only one-third of 

Council members for such sessions. 

While discussing the Council’s membership, I described how members with mixed 

human rights records have increased their representation on the Council—have 

used and abused their numbers to call successfully for two separate special sessions. 

The first, which took place on July 5 and 6, was called to address the human rights 

situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The United States did not support 

the holding of this session, which focused only on Israel while it ignored the role 

of Hamas and Syria in creating the situation, and also failed to note the failure of 

the Palestinian Authority government to denounce terrorism. 

The second special session occurred on August 11, on the situation in Lebanon. 

This Special Session was unhelpful and could have undermined the Security Council’s concurrent efforts to reach a lasting peace, taking into account the views of both 

Lebanon and Israel. The United States strongly opposed the unbalanced approach 

taken by the Council in its resolution on focusing only on actions by Israel, and ignoring the actions by Hezbollah that gave rise to the conflict. Fortunately, in New 

York, the Security Council was able to finalize its resolution, establishing the current ceasefire and laying the path for a return to peace in the region. We were deeply disappointed that, in Geneva, many Human Rights Council members chose to 

vote in favor of the OIC-sponsored resolution, and we have made our concerns very 

clear to them. 

The United States remains seriously concerned about the Human Rights Council’s 

unnecessary focus on Israel. We believe the Human Rights Council must exercise 

its responsibility to promote and protect human rights even-handedly. The decisions 

to hold these two special sessions and the imbalanced resolutions adopted there 

were regrettable. However, the United States firmly believes that the special sessions mechanism—if used properly to address egregious cases—should and can be 

a valuable tool in the promotion and protection of human rights. We are prepared 

to support calls for future special sessions on countries where there are serious and 

emerging human rights abuses, and are actively discussing possibilities with likeminded countries. 

Finally, when a country refuses to cooperate with the Council and the international community, the Council retains the option of condemnatory resolutions. 

One of the most important vehicles for addressing egregious violations of rights is 

a UN resolution outlining the problems, and exhorting the state to make immediate 

reforms to prevent or remedy the violations. Condemnatory resolutions passed by 

the former Commission assigned Special Rapporteurs or other ‘‘special procedures’’

to monitor the situation and report back to the UN about developments. Deputy Assistant Secretary Lagon has described U.S. priorities in the review of such mandates 

that the Council inherited from the Commission. The United States very much supports resolutions that call to account the worst violators of the universally accepted 

human rights and fundamental freedoms of their people, especially those that refuse 

to cooperate with the Council. 

As an observer at the Council, the United States is actively conferring with 

friends who are members about when to pursue condemnatory resolutions directed 

at violating states. Over the last few months, we have held dozens of meetings with 

counterparts in like-minded countries to press hard for calling to account those 

22

countries that refuse to cooperate with the international community. In Geneva last 

week, I held a series of bilateral and regional group meetings to press this issue. 

Mark was in Geneva in April, May, and July and held similar meetings. More senior 

officials of the Department are, of course, also regularly involved in such discussions 

with their counterparts. The result of these discussions is an emerging strategy of 

like-minded countries to maintain intense scrutiny on the worst violators of human 

rights and ensure that they are held to account. 

CONCLUSION

Mr. Chairman, as Secretary Rice has said, the United States is committed to 

make the new UN Human Rights Council strong and effective. This is essential because there are still repressive and, sadly, bloodthirsty regimes that violate the fundamental human rights of their people and refuse the international community’s 

help. The UN must be able to hold up a mirror to them and ‘‘speak truth to power.’’

The mandate of the Council is clearly presented in its founding resolution text 

where UN Member States decided ‘‘. . . that the Council should address situations 

of violations of human rights, including gross and systematic violations.’’ Making 

that lofty statement a reality is the primary objective of U.S. policy at the UN 

Human Rights Council, and we are working hard in a variety of ways to achieve 

that goal. 

The coming sessions and decisions of the Council will demonstrate whether the 

new body has the ability—and more importantly—the political will to protect and 

promote human rights more effectively and fairly than its predecessor. The United 

States remains committed to work cooperatively with its member states to make the 

Council as strong and effective as it can be. Again, we believe that the cause of freedom, democracy, and human rights defenders around the globe requires our best effort. 

In the weeks and months ahead, I look forward to consulting further with the 

Committee, to work cooperatively with its Members, as well as with civil society, 

and with our international partners to press the Human Rights Council to undertake its duties well. The United States will not diminish our standards in any way 

as we pursue this important objective. Thank you, once again, for your attention to 

the UN Human Rights Council.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much for your testimony, and both 

of you for your fine work on behalf of our nation, particularly as 

it relates to these issues. 

Let me begin with some questions, first on the pledges. I have 

read the responses of several of the countries as to what their 

pledges were with special emphasis on two that got elected, China 

and Cuba. I know that at the upcoming September 18 to October 

6 session there will be working groups reporting on how this Universal Periodic Review will unfold. I don’t know if their work has 

been completed, but I know we have been a part of that. 

My question is when does a country like China or Cuba or some 

other egregious violator—North Korea, although they are not on 

the Council—get reviewed? Will it be 3 years down the line? Will 

it be 6 years down the line because they are allowed, obviously, two 

consecutive terms of office? To me, that is very important because 

delay is denial, especially to the victims in a place like China. 

And I would just note parenthetically that this Subcommittee 

has been roundly critical, as has the Administration and human 

rights watchdog groups, on China’s barbaric behavior in a myriad 

of areas when it comes to human rights. 

Recently, I filed a petition along with Ben Cardin and with the 

AFL–CIO on the violation of workers’ rights in China. There are 

no unions, people are not paid, workers earn 10–50 cents per hour, 

and the use of gulag, or allowed day labor, is widespread and pervasive. Child labor is pervasive. China is a country of particular 

concern because of its abuse of religious freedom. I know many people in prison today who are pastors, one of whom I know quite well 

23

and met with when I was in China, Bishop Chu of Baldine Province. He may have even been executed, but he was last sighted in 

prison. 

We know that the forced abortion policy has unbelievable pain 

and agony upon the women of China especially; that there is missing as many as 100 million girls. A gendercide is occurring because 

one child is permitted per family and girls have been eliminated 

systematically in China. We know the Uigurs have been picked out 

as the Tibetan Buddhists for particularly harsh mistreatment. 

We know that they are using the Internet to crack down on religious and political dissidents, people who just want to advocate democracy. We recently had a day-long hearing on the Global Online 

Freedom Act, and especially as it relates to China. There are 

35,000 or 36,000 estimated secret police in China combing the 

Internet waves to try to discover anyone who puts ‘‘democracy’’ or 

some other forbidden word into their e-mail or Internet posting. 

Yet they are a country in good standing. That to me is the height 

of hypocrisy. Their pledge was very, very soft and nonspecific. 

A Universal Periodic Review has to occur. When, and what will 

this review look like? When will countries like China be brought 

forth and really looked at? 

Again, as I mentioned in my opening, you and I have read 

Manfred Nowak’s statement on China. It is an indictment on the 

use of torture in the PRC. Yet they sit on the Council—it is mind 

boggling. 

Ms. BARKS-RUGGLES. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I would like to 

start by addressing a few China-specific questions and then turn 

to Mark to talk about the Universal Periodic Review mechanism. 

As you have pointed out, there are serious and continuing human 

rights abuses in China. There are a number of ways that we are 

trying to address those issues in the Administration, including the 

Assistant Secretary, my boss, Barry Longren for Democracy, 

Human Rights and Labor, who has gone to China to have discussions with them on human rights and to talk to them about what 

we expect them to do before we are able to resume the human 

rights dialogue that has been suspended for a number of years because of some of the egregious problems that you yourself just 

pointed out. 

We have given them in a number of discussions, including at various different levels in our Government up to and including the 

Secretary of State and the President, a series of steps that we 

would like them to take in order to resume that dialogue. We have 

discussed with them specific cases of individual prisoners, and we 

share your concerns about the need for them to demonstrate improvement so that we can then begin engaging bilaterally on a serious dialogue with them. 

However, we understand that that is not enough and it needs to 

also be addressed in the international community in the multilateral questions, including through the Human Rights Council. We 

have talked with a number of our friends on the Council about 

when we should pursue specific country issues on the Council. 

Those discussions continue, and part of this is trying to figure out 

what make sense to address when. Which is first out of the box will 

be important, but also how to get things through because we want 

24

to make sure that the Council is effective. Those discussions are 

continuing and I don’t want to try and predict when China specifically will be addressed, but part of that also figures into when will 

they come before the UPR as well. 

So I will turn to Mark to address the questions on the Universal 

Periodic Review. 

Mr. LAGON. I, of course, share your moral and policy concern 

about China being addressed by the international community and 

by the UN mechanisms. 

With regard to the Universal Periodic Review, the idea of the 

proposed review would be that members of the Human Rights 

Council would be subject to the review earliest and first. It is designed to answer the question, Who are you to stand in judgment 

of others? It really does put some pressure on governments that are 

thinking of running that they might be subject to this review. It 

might have even led some countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe to 

think twice about running. It is important that China be among 

the first. 

There was a straw poll, I mean a drawing of straws after the 

first election to create staggered elections for future years, and so 

some governments that won in the election got a 1-year seat, a 2-

year seat, and a 3-year seat. It is the unfortunate outcome that a 

couple of governments like Poland and the Czech Republic only got 

1 year, and a couple of governments like China and Cuba managed 

to get 3 years by that drawing of straws. 

That should not be an excuse for dictatorial governments to come 

later. It is important that all governments be treated that and that 

it not only be the freedom-loving liberal societies of the West that 

are treated to the Universal Periodic Review first. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask you a question in regards to definitions. When any of us write a law or put a proposal forward, there 

is always a definition page which defines terms so that there is no 

ambiguity as to what we mean. 

What about the ambiguity about human rights and what the 

Human Rights Council will construe to be human rights? 

I note that Louise Arbour, in a statement, made a point of pointing out that she believes that the most serious human rights violation that we must confront is poverty. Now, I would generally put 

that on the humanitarian side of things and believe that we need 

to aggressively try to mitigate poverty anywhere and everywhere 

we see it, but if it becomes a place holder that crowds out other 

human rights abuses, I think we have a problem. 

I remember in the early days when I first got elected 26 years 

ago, we used to meet with the Soviets and talk about religious freedom and again talking about the crack down on Refusnicks and Soviet Jews and Pentacostals and others. They would immediately go 

to a discussion about homelessness in America, and you know, it 

was like, okay, we address that, but that is not basically what the 

definition of human rights is all about. 

So definitions again, I think it is all important that we know exactly what we are talking about, which is why the treaties are so 

important as compared to some conferences and the like, and I 

have been at many of those conferences. I would just finally say, 

very often the text of the conference document is written in adVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:16 Nov 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\090606\29835.000 DOUG PsN: DOUG
25

vance. It always is written in advance. Some of the questionable 

language is bracketed. They work on the bracketed, and, frankly, 

it is a process of wearing people out over the course of a week to 

get a consensus document and everyone goes home and say we did 

a great thing. 

That is hardly a method or methodology that leads to human 

rights that then need to be guarded and fought for. It is very, very, 

I think, slippery in the way some of those conferences are run. 

So I would ask you: Definition, how do we get to a definition, and 

will the working groups address that? 

Mr. LAGON. The issue of economic, social and cultural rights has 

been with us for awhile. We embrace the Universal Declaration on 

Human Rights even though it cites economic, social and cultural 

rights. But it has been our strong view that the character of those 

ideas is very different from political and civil rights. They are 

things protected. They are negative, bad outcomes of freedoms diminished that are protected in the concept of political and civil liberties. 

Economic, social and cultural rights, in our view, should not be 

subject to judicial enforcement. We think that properly vested governments accountable to their people, representing the consent of 

the government should provide for economic goods, should look out 

for the housing, you know, the diminution of hunger of their people, but these are not rights that the UN should be speaking to of 

the same character. 

These discussions will clearly continue, and Arbour has fed it 

with her comment about this. It is true that this body, with the increased number of African and Asian group members, will focus on 

economic and social and cultural rights. There is the definitional 

question, and important one. Additionally, there is the tactic used 

by some developing countries, and notably even some democratic 

governments within the developing world, to turn the discussion 

away from condemnatory resolutions that relate to political and 

civil liberties by focusing on questions of economic haves and have 

nots within countries, and economic haves and have nots within 

the world. 

I will just say one comment about conferences. We agree with 

you fervently that conferences and their outcome documents, their 

communiques do not have the legal weight within the international 

system that treaties do. This has been a problem that we have 

faced for some time in the General Assembly, in the old Commission on Human Rights, is citing conferences, notably conferences 

like the Durbin Conference on Racism that turned out to be a manifestation of racism and hate more than something to fight it, and 

yet we will continue to vigilantly fight inappropriate references 

that give it equal weight to treaties or instruments within the UN 

system. 

Mr. SMITH. Chairman Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let us see, we have got now only 20 percent 

of the members of the body that will be passing judgments on 

human rights, only 20 percent of them are human rights abusers 

themselves. China and Cuba are still part of this body. I would 

suggest that while the United Nations and while this Council still 

has some value, and we should be at least utilizing a forum that 

26

exists, I would hope that we also caution our fellow Americans and 

others around the world not to place their faith in bodies that are 

composed 20 percent of people who should be condemned by that 

body. 

Chairman Smith and I have for many years pointed out the 

major human rights abuses in China. Yet our Government, including this Administration, continues the policies that assist American 

businessmen to invest in China. We still have guaranteed loans of 

people who were going to build factories in China. 

And while I commend both of you for an advocacy of a standard 

and a position, and I understand the moderation that you have, I 

don’t know if I am ever going to be able to come to a hearing like 

this and be satisfied with my Government, the Government of 

Thomas Jefferson and the Government of values that we supposedly champion in the world. You have said the right thing 

today. You are trying to go in the right direction. You are voices 

not only of moderation but also of trying to accomplish what you 

can accomplish. 

So my only comments are what I just made, and I would just say 

good luck to you both, and do your very best. Make us proud to be 

Americans. We are not proud if America is just a country of people 

who came from every corner of the world in order to just make 

money. We came here also to be a shining light of example of the 

type of standards of decency and liberty and justice that would 

hopefully have its impact on the world, not through our involvement in organizations, flawed organizations like the United Nations, but instead as an example to the rest of the world. 

So you have got a lot to live up to, and you are trying to do a 

good job, so good luck to you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Fortenberry. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. That was a very powerful statement, Mr. 

Chairman, Chairman Rohrabacher, and I appreciate it because he 

is hinting at something that probably is beyond the framework of 

today’s discussion about how on one side of our offices we promote 

policies that further economic relationships, and on the other side 

we condemn and try to uphold the fundamentals of human dignity 

around the world. When those two virtues, when those two policies 

are at an impasse we just sort of do them both, and how to reconcile that is an important policy discussion that I think needs to 

take place. Thank you for raising it. 

Chairman Smith actually addressed the two questions that I had 

for both of you, but I think it would be worthwhile going back and 

unpacking it a little bit further. Secretary Lagon, if you could go 

back to the Universal Periodic Review and just talk about the possibility of that being implemented. You seem to be indicating that 

this is a United States initiative. Who are our allies in this regard 

or is this process already underway through a large movement 

among Council members, among the general assembly, and what is 

its possibility of implementation? 

I think it is reasonable, it perhaps is the only enforcement mechanism that has any teeth so that the new Council simply doesn’t 

become just a device for inflammatory rhetoric, and then we move 

on to other things. 

27

I will stop there. I have a second question though I would like 

to ask you both. 

Mr. LAGON. And some of your respective comments are so rich 

that we may want to comment, although you are right, that bigger 

question about those two virtues may be for some other hearing. 

On the Universal Periodic Review, I would not describe us from 

the outset as a champion of the Universal Periodic Review because 

we were skeptical, we were worried that it would be used to divert 

attention from condemnatory resolutions, an excuse used to suggest, well, we haven’t done the periodic review yet so you can’t 

have a resolution on a particular dictatorial country. 

However, it has great potential to add to the mechanisms of the 

human rights machinery of the UN if done right. We think it is important that states take some ownership of it, that there be responsibility by states, but it should not be allowed to be just the creature of a politicized debate or, frankly, the soft discussion between 

different developing countries or between countries with dictatorial 

governments to go easy on the record of their colleagues. It needs 

to be a serious effort to look at the record of certain countries without creating a heavy bureaucratized effort, which is always the sin 

of the UN is to create something too bureaucratized. 

We mentioned that we are very concerned that technical assistance to countries in transition be offered, not only the important 

condemnatory resolutions to those particularly recalcitrant bloodthirsty and repressive governments, but governments in transition 

seeking technical assistance. We hope that this does not—this Universal Periodic Review does not become so bureaucratic that the 

Office of the High Commissioner and the whole human rights apparatus focuses on that and takes attention away from helping 

countries in the field so that those marginalized people are not assisted. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Well, perhaps one suggestion there could be 

that somebody who is graded or scored, and this is related to my 

second question as well, might be offered the opportunity to be 

moved into another category prior to the public discourse that 

takes place or the condemnation that takes place if they agree to 

certain types of technical assistance that will help correct those 

measures. Just an idea for your consideration. 

Mr. LAGON. There are scores that are taken account of with the 

Millennium Challenge Account, and I look to our experts on the 

second panel. Brett Schaefer is associated with one score, the Index 

of Economic Freedom, and Jennifer Windsor would be excellent on 

the annual survey. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. This would be a good segue to the second part 

of the question which the Chairman has also touched upon. In your 

testimony you suggested that the United States very much supports resolutions that call to account the worst violators of ‘‘universally accepted human rights and fundamental freedoms of their 

people.’’ Given the fluidity of the understanding of what that means, now 

talking about a score card, and talking about diversion into issues 

that might fall under the desired fruits of a stabilized society that 

has enshrined basic human rights, where is this going to come 

from? Is the benchmark document still the Universal Declaration 

28

on Human Rights, or again, is this process so fluid that it is very, 

very difficult to find an objective standard that talks about what 

I certainly believe, and I think most of us do believe, the immutable rights that are found in the very basic nature of persons as 

they lead to civil society and the other protected rights that we 

enjoy and some others around the world enjoy as well? 

Ms. BARKS-RUGGLES. Thank you, Mr. Representative. We believe 

that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights remains an absolutely critical document to the upholding of a universal standard of 

individual freedoms, protections, and liberties. These are immutable rights for all individuals and we believe that governments 

that have abused that standard need to be brought to account. 

The new Council offers a number of new mechanisms, but does 

not have a diminution of the condemnatory resolution mechanism 

from the Commission. There are ways of getting at countries that 

are serial users, serious human rights abusers, and those who 

refuse to cooperate with the international community. 

As you have suggested, when recommended they refuse to cooperate, whether that is with rapporteurs or whether technical assistance. There could be country-specific condemnatory resolutions, 

and we believe that that is an important mechanism for the Council to preserve and maintain, and that it is an important quiver or 

air/wind quiver of the Council. 

We believe that also the Universal Periodic Review could lead towards, if certain steps are recommended and the country refuses 

to take those steps, and refuses to cooperate with technical assistance, that again that could lead toward a more condemnatory 

stance by the Council. 

We believe also that there are places through special sessions 

where if there is an emerging situation, such as was faced in 1994 

in Rwanda where it is a serious and emerging threat, that with 

this new Council meeting not once for 6 weeks, and if you happen 

to run into a genocide in April, oh, sorry, we won’t address that 

until next March, we now have the ability to call a special session 

to address that issue right then, right there, and to recommend action, whether that is referring the matter to the Security Council 

if that is appropriate for action there, or whether it is taking a condemnatory resolution or other. There is a whole series of steps that 

could be taken. 

Likewise, in situations where countries are emerging from conflict, the recent situation with Liberia may be a case in point, 

where a country is taking steps but struggling to improve what had 

been a dire and very serious human rights situation, where a special session could be taken in a future resolution of a conflict to 

offer technical assistance, to help them bridge the gaps, if you will, 

especially in cases where there are serious resource gaps for those 

countries. 

So there are a number of different mechanisms that would be 

available to this Council to get at these questions, and it really 

comes back to the question I raised in my testimony of whether 

this Council has the political will to use all those mechanisms to 

try and actually implement improvements on the ground, and that 

is where really the gold standard is going to be: Is this Council able 

to actually make a difference on the ground? 

29

Mr. FORTENBERRY. One quick follow up, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to see if you could provide the other measurements 

that you said that are out there, looking at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as kind of a core document, but you mentioned there are other measures floating out there. That would be 

interesting to me if you could provide that, I would appreciate it. 

Secondly, one of you suggested in your testimony that the Council’s proceedings be moved from Geneva and from the comfortable 

surroundings of Geneva into the field. I think that is very astute. 

What if this perhaps moved around or field offices, if you were, 

were held in various places? I think that is a very good recommendation, very practical. 

Ms. BARKS-RUGGLES. We will be happy to provide you with a list 

of the various different measures that are out there. I would recommend to you, of course, my bureau’s human rights report——

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Sure. 

Ms. BARKS-RUGGLES [continuing]. Which we do on an annual 

basis, and also the Report on International Religious Freedom, 

which is also done by the State Department, as well as the Trafficking in Persons Report, all of which feed into very basic and fundamental human rights. But we would be happy to provide you 

with—we have great little CD–ROMs of those, and we also be 

happy to provide you with a list of other measures that we look at 

when we are looking at different countries’ records. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. I am greatly confident in your work, don’t get 

me wrong. I am looking at other possible notions that are out there 

that are challenging again what we consider to be immutable 

rights, so I would appreciate that. Thank you. 

Mr. LAGON. I just wanted to clarify my point about the field. My 

main point was that, as this Office of the High Commissioner for 

Human Rights enlarges, we want to make sure that it is not just 

a Euro-centric think tank that when the Office of the High Commissioner is doing its technical assistance, it moves its resources 

and personnel out to its field offices rather than being only focused 

at the center. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you. 

Mr. LAGON. Thank you for your comments. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me conclude with some final questions. Perhaps 

my colleagues have a few additional ones. 

But what are we doing now with the OIC in reference to the possibility that they will call for an additional special session on 

Israel? What likely will be the agenda of rapporteurs on September 

18 and October 6? Will there be a focus on Darfur where you have 

the Khartoum Government thumbing his nose at the international 

community and a UN peacekeeping force, and now as we are reading every day, troop deployments into Darfur, more slaughters, 

more rapes of individuals who are innocent and certainly don’t deserve that? 

I mean, if anything cries out for immediate UN Human Rights 

Council action, it would seem to me that Darfur should be first out 

of the blocks on September 18, if not, why not? 

And let me just ask you with regards to the resolution said that 

the work and the functioning of the Council could be reviewed 

within 5 years. Within doesn’t mean that 5 years. Obviously it 

30

means anytime before that. I would hope that we would be looking 

to seriously go back and look at what was missed and the General 

Assembly should be honest enough. Anytime we pass a law we go 

back a year later. If something was missing, some gaping hole, we 

take a second look, reform provisions go forward hopefully to rectify that mistake or that overlooking of a provision that should 

have been in there. I would hope that we would be looking to do 

that very, very soon to try to correct some of these inequities. 

Finally, Mark Wallace, our U.S. representative, had called for 

the elimination of the Sub-Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and its subsidiary bodies last spring because of its disregard of directives and guidance from its parent 

body, and because it reflected, according to our position, the U.S. 

position, the views mostly of the 24 experts as opposed to what is 

basically settled human rights concern. So you get people moonlighting, writing reports going into tangents that is just their own 

personal view on something, and therefore it has the view of the 

UN body. How do they fit into all of this, the Sub-Commission? 

Where does it fit with the new Council? 

Ms. BARKS-RUGGLES. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I will try and 

address the first two of your questions and then turn to Mark for 

the second two structural questions. 

Mr. SMITH. Sure. 

Ms. BARKS-RUGGLES. As regards to the OIC. The OIC is not a 

monolith. Seventeen of the 47 members of the Council are members 

of the OIC. This means that they have more than one-third of the 

membership, and that they are able to call at will special sessions. 

We are realistic about what that means as far as the chances that 

there will be future Israel-focused special sessions. 

We, however, have seen that not all members of the OIC have 

voted consistently throughout the series of resolutions, there were 

four, two in the first session and then one each in each of the special sessions on these resolutions against Israel, and we believe 

that there is not yet a cemented position by that group. 

Each country there has individual national interests, and we will 

continue to work with a number of those countries, including importantly some of those countries which are very strong democracies, to look at what is in their national interests and their own 

interests in having a strong, capable human rights Council that is 

actually able to work with them to address serious human rights 

abuses in their own regions. 

When I was out in Geneva last week I had a couple of meetings 

with a number of those countries, and I think there is reason to 

hope that we can work with some of them to get them to understand that the need for balance and globally—a global viewpoint of 

this human rights counsel in the future. 

On Sudan and Darfur, we could not agree with you more that 

there is a very, very serious and ongoing human rights problem. In 

Darfur, as you know, this Administration has been leading the 

world in calling what was happening there genocide, and calling attention to it, and focusing very, very serious attention not only bilaterally but by the entire international community on the situation there. 

31

Our Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Gendi Fraser, was in 

Khartoum last week discussing the situation there with the government and trying to get them to address some of these issues. We 

will work with our colleagues throughout the government to decide 

when it is appropriate to bring these issues to various bodies in the 

UN system. 

There is not only the UN Human Rights Council but obviously 

the Security Council is also engaged in this matter, and we want 

to make sure that we are addressing all pieces and parts: The security part of this but also the human rights part of this conflict as 

we move forward, and the obvious problem that is caused by the 

AU peacekeepers there, having their mandate run out soon, and 

the inability of the UN peacekeepers to go in behind is of first and 

foremost concern for our Government, and we remain very, very 

engaged on that, and obviously that will have implications on the 

human rights situation. But we will also be remaining engaged on 

the very serious human rights situation that is there. 

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate it. Just briefly again on Darfur. Will 

there be an attempt made at the upcoming Human Rights Council 

to put pressure on Khartoum to allow United Nations peacekeepers 

in? 

Ms. BARKS-RUGGLES. To answer—— Mr. SMITH. It seems to me that right now they have a window 

of opportunity to do incredible mischief and killing. Their troops 

are being deployed. I don’t know how many. I have seen 20,000, 

30,000, 10,000, I don’t know what the exact number is. At least we 

have an additional area of engagement with the UN Human Rights 

Council as observers. Could we make that request? 

Ms. BARKS-RUGGLES. It is going to have to—we are going to have 

to see how things evolve, quite frankly, in the next 2 weeks as we 

go forward. We are obviously at a critical moment here, and we will 

see how things evolve in the next 2 weeks to see if we are able to 

move forward with something in the Security Council and then to 

see how that meshes with something in the Human Rights Council. 

I don’t want to say definitively yes or no because I don’t think 

we know right now, and we will have to see how things evolve in 

the next 2 weeks, but we have been working very closely. I had a 

discussion just this morning with Gendi Fraser about this, to try 

and see how we can best make this situation stay on the front 

burner of the international agenda because it is absolutely critical 

that the international community, not just the United States and 

not just our partners who have been working very hard for peace 

in Darfur engage, but the entire international community, including Sudan’s neighbors. 

Importantly, I think we also need to look at the OIC and some 

of the member states there. I will be going out to Egypt next week 

and we will be raising this with the Government of Egypt as well. 

Mr. LAGON. I had a couple of questions from Chairman Smith I 

wanted to respond to. Did you want to follow up with Erica? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Go ahead. 

Mr. LAGON. Okay. I wanted to respond to your question about 

the 5-year review and the elimination of the Sub-Commission. 

I take your point just as you with legislation refine earlier 

versions of legislation, like in dealing with the grossly dehumanVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:16 Nov 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\090606\29835.000 DOUG PsN: DOUG
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izing phenomenon of trafficking persons, with the reauthorizations 

having improved, filled holes, dealt with problems. One could look 

at the problems of the Human Rights Council before the 5-year review. We will look at that option. 

Our thought had been that the 5-year point will be the juncture 

set out in the resolution creating the Human Rights Council to decide whether it would become a principal body of the UN. Our 

main consideration is to see what the record is of the Human 

Rights Council. We will not allow it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy 

that we consider the Council problematic and not better than the 

Commission on Human Rights, but that was the main test that 

was designed for 5 years from now, but there may be some steps 

the General Assembly could take in the meantime. 

With regard to the Sub-Commission, we have indeed, both as a 

budgetary matter and a matter of review of all UN programs to see 

which are duplicative, stated in New York, as Ambassador Wallace 

did, that the Sub-Commission should be eliminated, and vigorously 

in the discussions of mandates in Geneva under the auspices of the 

Human Rights Council, suggested that the current Sub-Commission that still exists despite the fact that the Commission on 

Human Rights is gone is completely unmoored. 

There is not only the problem that you cite some experts on the 

committee having gone far afield from the intended mandates of 

the principal body, but there are members of that committee who 

are ostensibly independent experts, but are really the agents, the 

instruments of dictatorial governments that they are associated 

with. 

Our view is that there should be no successor body, that the old 

job of the Sub-Commission was to create norms, and just as Secretary-General Annan and High Commissioner Arbour have said, 

we should look at implementation. 

If there is any successor body of experts, it should only be dealing with implementation questions, some advice on technical assistance that would be most appropriate to help countries, but our first 

choice in what we are advocating strongly is that the Sub-Commission be eliminated and not replaced. 

Mr. SMITH. Dana. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would just like to make sure that the record 

indicates that—I understand the Chairman has a special place in 

his heart for Israel, as do most Americans, but let me just note, 

Mr. Chairman, that I think it is absolutely right for this organization, whether you call it a council, Human Rights Council, or if you 

want to refer to it as, or just us as a people, to hold Israel accountable on the same standard we hold everyone else accountable, and 

I know it has become almost a gut reaction from us because in the 

past the hypocrisy and double standards that have been used in 

order to condemn Israel, you have tyrants condemning Israel for 

not treating the Palestinians correctly and giving them their political rights. 

But at the same time we do have to recognize there has been in 

this conflict millions of people, Palestinians, who have for decades 

not enjoyed the political freedoms, liberties that we expect ordinary 

citizens to have: The right to vote and to determine their own govVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:16 Nov 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\090606\29835.000 DOUG PsN: DOUG
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ernment. Instead they have been held in limbo because Israel itself 

did not know what it wanted to go with Gaza and the West Bank. 

And I think Israel in the last year has made a decision that they 

cannot have the West Bank and Gaza incorporated into Israel 

without incorporating billions of Palestinians, which is not what 

they want to do because that would destroy the nature of what 

they have set out to do back in 1948, which is essentially have an 

Israeli/Jewish state that Jews around the world could look to as 

their homeland. 

But just for the record’s sake I want to make sure that everyone, 

at least for this congressman, liberty and justice is one standard, 

and I would applaud Israel right now for trying to make those 

moves and make that decision that will permit the Palestinian people in the end to have their own homeland if they choose not to 

use it as a springboard to attack Israel itself. So we are going 

through this period. 

But we do believe that the Palestinian people have a right to direct their government through consent of the governed, just like everybody else, and some of the criticism in the past of Israel, while 

hypocritical coming from dictatorships, some of it would have been 

justified in coming from people who do believe in democracy and 

human rights for all. 

So let us hope that, and in fact, as I say, I think Israel in the 

last year has made some fundamental decisions, trying to set up 

Gaza as an example of where the Palestinians, and the West Bank, 

how some self-government could be brought to bear, and unfortunately, it has been a very rocky road this first year, but let us hope 

they evolve in the right way. 

But I just want to make sure that whoever is reading this transcript around the world understands that we do hold Israel accountable to the same standards as everybody else in terms of 

human rights, and just thought I would put that in the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Will my friend yield briefly? 

I do think it should be noted and I will put in the record the two 

resolutions from the special sessions on July 5 and 6, and August 

11. The problem was that the Council was incredibly one-sided and 

made no mention of Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran or Syria. And if you 

read their report, it places Israel at fault for everything. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Excuse me. Is that a fault for the current crisis? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, both crises. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I am supportive of Israel in the current situation. I think they have done what is right. They were fired upon 

and they couldn’t sit back and have rockets lobbed into Israel. That 

would be justified. 

But I do think that it is not necessary to criticize everybody in 

order to criticize Israel at the same time. However, in this case you 

are putting it in the proper context, so I think that is absolutely 

correct. 

Mr. SMITH. In addition to that, my deep concern is that there are 

human rights violations being committed with impunity all over 

the world by many of the same players who are sitting as members 

of good standing on the Human Rights Council. China, Cuba, and 

Saudi Arabia come to mind. Saudi Arabia being a country of parVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:16 Nov 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\090606\29835.000 DOUG PsN: DOUG
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ticular concern because of its egregious violations of religious freedom, to mention just one violation, and yet nothing there. It begs 

the question because that is what happened, and those of us who 

would go to Geneva every year to the Human Rights Commission 

meetings were surprised by the disproportionate amount of angst 

leveled against the Israelis vis-a-vis the rest of the world. 

China, we would have resolutions of no action because they were 

able to lobby members sitting on that Commission very often with 

very lucrative contracts and the like. They use trade as a weapon 

to keep them from joining on with the United States or others in 

motions to condemn Chinese barbaric actions on human rights. 

Even when we got to places like Darfur, there were efforts to 

lessen the severity of the resolution. These are only words. So what 

we are asking for is an end to the hypocrisy, and the preoccupation 

with bashing Israel. As I think Dr. Lagon pointed out, the hate-fest 

that occurred in Durbin under the auspices of the UN, it was not 

about tyrants, it was all about hatred and vitriol leveled against 

Jews and it was anti-Semitic like no other conference probably ever 

run under the auspices of the UN. So that is the concern, but I appreciate your comments, I really do. 

Would anyone else like to comment? 

Mr. LAGON. We appreciate your comments on this. You are right, 

all nations should be subject to scrutiny, all member states of the 

UN, Israel and the United States included, but what we are concerned about is that when there is a double standard, as Chairman 

Smith describes, a disproportionate focus on Israel and a focus in 

the UN human rights machinery that does not advance the likelihood of peace and an outcome of vision that the President has spoken of, of two states living in peace with democratic governance, 

including the democratic governance of the Palestinian people you 

refer to. 

Mr. SMITH. I want to thank you two distinguished witnesses 

again for your leadership and for providing us with your insights 

on the Council today. 

Mr. LAGON. Very glad to join you. 

Mr. SMITH. I would like to now welcome our second panel beginning with Brett Schaefer who is a Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at The Heritage Foundation. As a foreign policy research fellow, Mr. Schaefer covers the United Nations 

and affiliated organizations to evaluate their performance and effectiveness. He has authored nearly 100 public policy papers, and 

over 45 book chapters, articles and opinion pieces. 

We will then hear from Hillel Neuer who is the Executive Director of UN Watch, a nongovernmental organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. He is a leading commentator on UN human rights 

reform, appearing on CNN and the BBC. As a former international 

lawyer, the U.S. District Court of New York cited Mr. Neuer for his 

superb work in human rights advocacy. 

We will then hear from Jennifer Windsor who is the Executive 

Director of Freedom House and oversees a staff of 100 with numerous offices around the world. Previously Ms. Windsor served for 9 

years with USAID where she most recently was a Deputy Assistant 

Administrator and Director of the Center for Democracy and GovVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:16 Nov 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\090606\29835.000 DOUG PsN: DOUG
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ernance in the Global Bureau. In addition, Ms. Windsor is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. 

Finally, we will hear from Dr. Morton H. Halperin who is the Executive Director for Open Society Policy Center. He works closely 

with the U.S. policy abroad to promote human rights and support 

for open societies. Previously Dr. Halperin served as a Senior Director for Democracy at the National Security Council. In addition, 

Dr. Halperin spent many years with the American Civil Liberties 

Union. 

Mr. Schaefer, if you could begin. 

STATEMENT OF MR. BRETT SCHAEFER, JAY KINGHAM FELLOW IN INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY AFFAIRS, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you for providing me with the opportunity to testify on the state of the United 

Nations’ Human Rights Council, and how it compares with its 

predecessor, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. 

My testimony is a bit long for the time permitted and I will be 

summarizing my remarks. With permission, I would like my full 

statement submitted for the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, yours and all of our witnesses will 

be made a part of the record. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Thank you. Since the very birth of the United 

Nations, protecting and advancing fundamental human rights has 

been one of the primary objectives of the organization. The drafters 

of the UN charter included a pledge by member states to ‘‘reaffirm 

faith and fundamental human rights in the dignity and worth of 

the human person and in equal rights of men and women.’’ UN 

treaties such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, 

which the General Assembly passed in 1948, formed the core of 

international standards for human rights. 

Yet the UN’s record on promoting fundamental human rights in 

recent times has been one of failure and inaction. No institution illustrated this failing more than the Commission on Human Rights, 

which in recent years evolved into a feckless organization that 

human rights abusers used to block criticism or action to promote 

human rights. For instance, members with dubious human rights 

records elected to the Commission in recent years have included Algeria, China, Cuba, Syria, Zimbabwe. Libya served as chairman of 

the Commission in 2003. Sudan was elected to the Commission in 

2004 despite its actions in Darfur. 

The Commission has also focused disproportionately on condemning Israel. By contrast, human rights violations in Sudan, 

China, Cuba and other nations were subject to minimal scrutiny. 

The disrepute of the Commission grew to the point where even Secretary-General Kofi Annan acknowledged, ‘‘We have reached the 

point at which the Commission’s declining credibility has cast a 

shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a 

whole.’’ The Secretary-General recommended replacing the Commission with a smaller Human Rights Council able to meet when 

necessary, possessing stronger standards for membership and 

charged with reviewing the human rights practices of every UN 

member state. 

36

The first test to see if the Council would surpass the Commission 

came last fall. The 2005 World Summit outcome document did follow through on the Secretary-General’s proposal to replace the 

Commission with a new Human Rights Council. However, the details of the Council, including its mandate, operations, size, membership, working methods and procedures were left to subsequent 

negotiation. The results of these negotiations fell considerably short 

of the proposals by the Secretary-General, nongovernmental organizations, the United States and other countries interested in making 

the Council more effective than the Commission for discussing and 

promoting human rights. 

For instance, the Council had no criteria for membership aside 

from geographical representation. Members of the Council are 

elected by an absolute majority of the General Assembly, not the 

two-thirds majority sought by the Secretary-General and the 

United States. 

The resolution set a higher bar to suspend a Council member—

a vote of two-thirds of the General Assembly—than the simply majority necessary to win a seat. 

While the Council is charged with conducting the Universal Periodic Review, the conclusions of the review would not prevent those 

countries found complacent in human rights violations from participating in the Council. 

The Council at 47 members is only marginally smaller than the 

previous Commission. 

These failings led the United States to vote against the Council 

in the General Assembly, and decide not to run for a seat in 2006, 

although it announced that it will continue its financial support 

and consider running in 2007, if the Council proved its merit. Significantly, well-known human rights abusers, such as Burma, 

China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe, all voted 

in favor of the new Council. 

The second test for the new Council to see if it is going to surpass the standards, admitted rather low standards of the Commission, was the May 9 election process for the Council. The election 

validated U.S. concerns that the new Council lacked criteria to prevent major human rights abusers from gaining seats. 

Prior to the election, candidates offered pledges for their adherence to human rights standards and justifications for the candidacy. These public statements were in many instances absurd in 

their deviance from historical record. For instance, the Chinese 

Government pledged that it is ‘‘committed to the promotion and 

protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Chinese people. . . . The National People’s Congress has adopted 

nearly 300 laws and regulations related to the protection of civil 

and political rights, ensuring complete freedom of the Chinese people in movement, employment, access to information, religious belief, and ways of life.’’

Cuba claims that ‘‘Either in the area of civil or political rights 

. . . the Cuban people can show the world with deep modesty, but 

with full satisfaction and pride, its tremendous achievements.’’

These claims obviously are refuted by the State Department’s 

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and also by the exerVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:16 Nov 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\090606\29835.000 DOUG PsN: DOUG
37

cises and admirable efforts by a number of NGOs focused on 

human rights issues. 

The General Assembly had the opportunity to prevent human 

rights abuses from gaining seats on the Council, but it did not take 

advantage of it. Despite promises by a number of nations to vote 

against human rights abusers, the membership on the Council remains only marginally better than the Commission. The transparently disingenuous nature of their pledges did not keep China 

or Cuba from winning seats on the Council. These countries were 

key players in undermining the effectiveness of the Commission 

and it is very likely that they will continue to perform this role on 

the Council. 

The Council faced the third test in its first session this past 

June. The session was marked by procedural issues designed to 

carry on many of the operations of the Commission. For instance, 

the Council extended the mandates established by the Commission 

that are carried out by independent human rights experts. 

The Council also established a working group to begin to consider how the Universal Periodic Review of human rights performance of all UN member states should operate, how often countries 

should be reviewed, and where to begin the reviews. This modest 

action was very disappointing. The Universal Periodic Review process was considered the most important achievement that would 

keep the Council from following in the footsteps and repeating the 

worst weaknesses of the Commission. It remains unknown whether 

the system that is ultimately established will conduct its assessments of human rights practices with the frequency and frankness 

that will make the Council a true improvement over the Commission. 

Similarly, it remains uncertain as to what extent the mandates 

and rapporteurs will be scrutinized or if the Council will undertake 

to tighten the mandates. 

But the singular failure of the first Council session was its treatment of Israel. On this subject, the Council proved itself to be just 

as vulnerable to politization and selective judgment as the Commission. In an extended deja vu experience the Council, led by the 

Organization of the Islamic Conference, repeatedly singled out 

Israel for censure despite the efforts of a number of countries on 

the Council. 

I will wrap up my remarks with a few suggestions, and I will 

welcome questions from the Committee. 

The hope that the new Human Rights Council would rectify the 

poor record of the Commission has thus far proven illusory. While 

the Council has the potential to be a stronger body than its discredited predecessor, such an outcome depends entirely on the actions 

of its members. There is no standard by which there will be an absolute certainty that the Council will not repeat the mistakes of the 

past. 

Based on the short record of the Council, the members have decided to turn their back on this opportunity and chosen to repeat 

many of the serious mistakes of the Commission. This disappointing situation underscores the wisdom of the Bush Administration in taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the Council. 

38

1 Charter of the United Nations, preamble, at http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/index.html 

(September 1, 2006). 2 United Nations, ‘‘UN in Brief: What the UN Does for Justice, Human Rights and International Law,’’ at http://www.un.org/Overview/uninbrief/chapter3lhumanrights.html (September 1, 2006). 

The Council will convene again this September, later this year in 

December, and again next March. All these sessions present opportunities for the Council to improve, and the U.S. should continue 

to work with Council members to ensure that the Council members 

with the worst human rights record be the first to be subject to the 

periodic reviews. There will be enormous pressure to water down 

the review process. One way to quickly gauge how useful that process will be is to have the countries with the worst human rights 

records—those most interested in white washing the reviews—assessed first. 

Second, the U.S. should seek to maintain the country-specific 

mandates. Countries with poor human rights records have been 

transparent in their desire to have the country-specific mandates 

minimized. However, these mandates provide a valuable means for 

addressing gross systematic and sustained human rights abuses by 

singling out individual nations. 

Finally, the review of the mandates should strive to more tightly 

define and focus their scope to the issues under consideration. 

Despite the disheartening beginning of the Council, members 

possess the ability to change course and demonstrate that they are 

determined to make the Council an effective advocate for fundamental human rights. Only if this occurs should the U.S. consider 

running for a seat next year. 

If the Universal Periodic Review process or the review of mandates continues to fall short, or the disgraceful politicization of the 

Council persists, it would be telling that the Council is not worth 

the trouble of rallying the support necessary for the United States 

to win a seat. Moreover, it should lead the United States to reconsider its financial support for the Council. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I await your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schaefer follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. BRETT SCHAEFER, JAY KINGHAM FELLOW IN

INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY AFFAIRS, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

Mr. Chairman, thank you for providing me with the opportunity to testify on the 

state of the new United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) and how it compares 

with its predecessor, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (CHR). With 

permission, I would like my statement submitted for the record. 

Since the very birth of the United Nations, protecting and advancing fundamental 

human rights has been one of the primary objectives of the organization. The drafters of the Charter of the United Nations included a pledge by member states ‘‘to 

reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human 

person, in the equal rights of men and women.’’1 U.N. treaties, such as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which the General Assembly passed in 1948, 

form the core of international standards for human rights. 

Yet the U.N.’s record in promoting fundamental human rights in recent times has 

been one of failure and inaction. No institution illustrated this failing more than the 

U.N. Commission on Human Rights. As the premier human rights body in the U.N. 

system, the CHR was charged with holding ‘‘public meetings to review the human 

rights performance of States, [adopting] new standards and [promoting] human 

rights around the world.’’ 2 Sadly, the CHR devolved into a feckless organization 

that human rights abusers use to block criticism or action to promote human 

39

3 In part, this was a result of the size of the commission, which at 53 members was often criticized as too big to act decisively. The CHR grew from 18 countries in 1946 to 21 in 1961, 32 

in 1966, 43 in 1979, and 53 in 1992. 4 Richard Waddington, ‘‘Libya Elected to Chair U.N. Human Rights Body,’’ Reuters, January 

20, 2003, at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/825808/posts, (September 1, 2006). 5 ‘‘In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all,’’ Report of the 

Secretary-General, at http://www.un.org/largerfreedom/chap5.htm, (September 1, 2006). 6 ‘‘The Struggle against Anti-Israel Bias at the UN Commission on Human Rights,’’ Analysis 

and Commentary from UN Watch in Geneva, Issue 138, January 4, 2006, at http://

www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1314451&ct=1766305, (September 1, 2006). 7 ‘‘Secretary-General’s Address to the Commission on Human Rights,’’ Secretary-General, Office of the Spokesman, April 7, 2005, at http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=1388 (September 1, 2006). Also see Mark P. Lagon, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs, U.S. Department of State, ‘‘The UN Commission on Human Rights: Protector or 

Accomplice?’’ testimony before the Subcommittee on Africa, Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, April 19, 2005, at http://www.state.gov/p/io/rls/rm/

44983.htm (September 1, 2006). 

rights.3 Two prominent examples of politicization and the selectivity by the Commission are: 

• Countries with poor human rights records successfully sought out seats on the 

Commission to block scrutiny. For instance, members with dubious human 

rights records elected to the Commission in recent years included Algeria, 

China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Vietnam and 

Zimbabwe. Libya served as chairman of the Commission in 2003, despite its 

ties to the Lockerbie airliner bombing and its own domestic human rights 

abuses.4 The U.S. ambassador walked out of the Commission in 2004 after 

Sudan’s election to the commission despite its role in Darfur. As noted by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, ‘‘the Commission’s capacity to perform its tasks 

has been increasingly undermined by its declining credibility and professionalism. In particular, States have sought membership of the Commission 

not to strengthen human rights but to protect themselves against criticism or 

to criticize others.’’5

• The Commission on Human Rights routinely singled out Israel for discriminatory treatment. For instance, the Commission’s agenda devoted a special item 

to censuring Israel, debates in the Commission focused disproportionately on 

condemning Israel, country-specific resolutions against Israel were equivalent 

to the combined total adopted against all other countries, and emergency special sessions and special sittings were frequently dedicated to condemning 

Israel.6 By contrast, issues such as the human rights violations in Sudan, 

China, Cuba, and other nations were subject to minimal scrutiny. 

The disrepute of the CHR grew to the point where even Secretary-General Kofi 

Annan acknowledged, ‘‘We have reached a point at which the Commission’s declining credibility has cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system 

as a whole, and where piecemeal reforms will not be enough.’’ 7 The Secretary-General went on to recommend replacing the CHR with a new, smaller Human Rights 

Council that would review the human rights practices of all of U.N. member states. 

The Council was to be a standing body able to meet when necessary with stronger 

standards for membership, such as being elected by two-thirds of the General Assembly and possessing strong record on human rights, and be charged with reviewing the human rights of every U.N. member state. Thus the stage was set for a new, 

more effective United Nations body to address human rights. Sadly, this historic opportunity was squandered as the United Nations fell victim to the political infighting that all too often afflicts that body. 

THE FIRST FAILED TEST

The 2005 World Summit Outcome Document did follow through on the SecretaryGeneral’s proposal to replace the Commission with a new Human Rights Council. 

However, the Outcome Document contained few details beyond assigning the Council responsibility for ‘‘promoting universal respect for the protection of all human 

rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction of any kind and in a 

fair and equal manner’’ and instructing it to ‘‘address situations of violations of 

human rights, including gross and systematic violations, and make recommendations thereon [and] promote effective coordination and the mainstreaming of human 

40

8 ‘‘Human Rights Council,’’ 2005 World Summit Outcome, General Assembly Resolution A/

RES/60/1, October 24, 2005, p. 33, at http://www.un.org/summit2005/, (September 1, 2006). 9Only 96 votes were required in May 2006. However, with Montenegro joining the U.N. as 

a new member state in June 2006, there are now 192 member states. 10 Ambassador John R. Bolton, ‘‘Explanation of Vote by Ambassador John R. Bolton, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, on the Human Rights Council Draft Resolution, 

in the General Assembly,’’ USUN Press Release # 51, March 15, 2006, at http://www.un.int/usa/

06l051.htm, (September 1, 2006). 11 ‘‘General Assembly Establishes New Human Rights Council by Vote of 170 in Favour to 4 

Against, with 3 Abstentions,’’ Department of Public Information, General Assembly Document 

rights within the United Nations system.’’ 8 All details of the Council, including its 

mandate, operations, size, membership, working methods and procedures were left 

to subsequent negotiation in the General Assembly. 

Negotiations in the General Assembly fell considerably short of proposals by the 

Secretary-General, non-governmental organizations, and the United States and 

other countries interested in making the body more effective than the Commission. 

Specifically:

• The Council has no criteria for membership other than geographical representation. Rather than adopt strong criteria to prevent human rights abusers 

from sitting on the new Council, member states are merely instructed to ‘‘take 

into account’’ a candidate’s human rights record when they vote. The lack of 

membership criteria leaves the Council open to infiltration and manipulation 

by the world’s worst human rights abusers. Not even states under Security 

Council sanction are automatically excluded.

• Members of the Council are elected by an absolute majority of the General Assembly, not the two-thirds majority sought by the Secretary-General and the 

U.S. Each country must get at least 97 votes in the General Assembly.9 This 

is a small improvement over the process for the CHR. Commission members 

were selected by the 54 countries of the Economic and Social Council, which 

were chosen by the General Assembly with little regard for human rights. 

ECOSOC rubber-stamped slates of candidates proposed by the five U.N. regional groups that usually included only as many countries as there were 

openings. The two-thirds requirement would have set a higher hurdle for 

membership and made it harder for countries with dubious human rights 

records to win seats on the Council with the intention of undermining the 

new body from within. 

• The resolution set a higher bar to suspend a HRC member—a vote of twothirds of the General Assembly—than the simple majority necessary to win a 

seat. While there is a provision for suspending a Council member that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights, that step can be taken 

only with the agreement of two-thirds of the members of the General Assembly. Not even 50 percent of the General Assembly could agree that Sudan was 

guilty of human rights violations in November 2005.

• While the Council is charged with conducting a universal periodic review, the 

conclusions of the review were not tied to a mandatory outcome. Even if the 

review finds numerous and serious human rights abuses, neither the Council 

nor the General Assembly is required to take action.

• The Council is only marginally smaller than the Commission, from 53 members to 47. This opens the door to states with questionable human rights 

records. Instead of a small body designed to attract the best citizens of each 

regional group, the Council has a large membership that requires a larger 

number of candidates.

• Special sessions of the Commission can be called by only one-third of the 

Council’s membership. Hailed as an improved capacity to deal with urgent 

human rights situations, the composition of the new Council makes it likely 

that special sessions will be politically driven. This concern was borne out 

during the inaugural meeting of the Council, which was immediately followed 

by a special session to censure Israel.

These failings led the U.S. to vote against the HRC in the General Assembly. ‘‘Absent stronger mechanisms for maintaining credible membership, the United States 

could not join consensus on this resolution,’’ explained U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. 

John Bolton. ‘‘We did not have sufficient confidence in this text to be able to say 

that the HRC would be better than its predecessor.’’ 10 Significantly, well-known 

human rights abusers Burma, China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, 

Syria, and Zimbabwe all voted in favor of the new Council.11 The Administration 

41

GA/10449, March 15, 2006, at http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/ga10449.doc.htm, (September 1, 2006). 12 China’s Pledge to the Human Rights Council, at http://www.un.org/ga/60/elect/hrc/china.pdf, 

(September 1, 2006). 13 ‘‘China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau),’’ Country Reports on Human Rights Practices—2005, The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, 

March 8, 2006, at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61605.htm, (September 1, 2006). 14 Cuba’s Pledge to the Human Rights Council, at http://www.un.org/ga/60/elect/hrc/cuba.pdf, 

(September 1, 2006). 15 ‘‘Cuba,’’ Country Reports on Human Rights Practices—2005, The Bureau of Democracy, 

Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, March 8, 2006, at http://www.state.gov/

g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61723.htm, (September 1, 2006). 16Saudi Arabia’s Pledge to the Human Rights Council, at http://www.un.org/ga/60/elect/hrc/

saudiarabia.pdf, (September 1, 2006). 17 ‘‘Saudi Arabia,’’ Country Reports on Human Rights Practices—2005, The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, March 8, 2006, at http://

www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61698.htm, (September 1, 2006). 18While countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe chose not to run for election, nothing prevents 

them from running in the future. Indeed, Venezuela easily surpassed the minimum number of 

votes necessary to be elected to the Council, but was denied only because a two other Latin 

Countries garnered more votes. ‘‘General Assembly Elects 47 Members of New Human Rights 

Council; Marks New Beginning for Human Rights Promotion, Protection,’’ Sixtieth General Assembly, GA/10459, May 9, 2006, at http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/ga10459.doc.htm, 

(September 1, 2006). 

announced that it would not run for a seat on the HRC in 2006 but would continue 

its financial support and might run for seat in 2007 if the Council proves effective. 

THE SECOND FAILED TEST

The second test was the May 9 election for membership on the Council. Prior to 

the election, candidates offered pledges of their adherence to human rights standards and justifications for their candidacy. These public statements were in many 

instances Kafkaesque in their absurdity and deviance from historical record. For instance:

• The Chinese government pledged that it is ‘‘committed to the promotion and 

protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Chinese People. . . . The National People’s Congress has adopted nearly 300 laws and 

regulations related to the protection of civil and political rights, ensuring complete freedom of the Chinese people in movement, employment, access to information, religious belief and ways of life.’’ 12 Yet the State Department’s Human Rights report noted that China is an authoritarian state characterized by numerous and serious human rights abuses including trafficking in 

women and children, restrictions on the freedom of assembly, restrictions on 

religious freedom, arbitrary arrest and detention among many other policies 

in contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.13

• Cuba claims that ‘‘Either in the area of civil and political rights . . . the 

Cuban people can show to the world, with deep modesty, but with full satisfaction and pride, its tremendous achievements.’’ 14 The State Department, 

however, reports Cuba is a totalitarian state characterized by numerous, serious human rights abuses including arbitrary arrest and detention, limitations 

on freedom of speech and press, restrictions on freedom of movement, and severe restrictions on worker rights.15

• Saudi Arabia claims a ‘‘confirmed commitment with the defense, protection 

and promotion of human rights. . . . Saudi Arabia pursues the policy of active cooperation with international organizations in the field of Human Rights 

and fundamental freedoms.’’ 16 The State Department criticized Saudi Arabia 

for its serious human rights failings including arbitrary arrest, discrimination 

toward women, restriction of worker rights, and lack of religious freedom.17

The May 9 election validated U.S. concerns that the new Council lacked sufficient 

criteria to prevent major human rights abusers from gaining seats. The transparently disingenuous nature of their pledges did not keep China, Cuba, and Saudi 

Arabia from gaining support from a majority of the General Assembly. They were 

joined by fellow abusers and unfree governments in Algeria and Russia.18 These 

countries were key players in undermining the effectiveness of the Commission on 

Human Rights, and so it is very likely that they will play the same role on the 

Council. 

The General Assembly had the opportunity to prevent human rights abusers from 

gaining seats on the Council but did not take advantage of it. Despite promises by 

a number of nations to vote against human rights abusers the membership of the 

42

19Freedom House, ‘‘Freedom in the World 2006: Selected Data from Freedom House’s Annual 

Global Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties,’’ at http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/

pdf/Charts2006.pdf, (September 1, 2006). 20Marc A. Miles, Kim R. Holmes, and Mary Anastasia O’Grady, 2006 Index of Economic Freedom (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation and Dow Jones & Company, Inc., 2006), at 

http://www.heritage.org/index, (September 1, 2006). 21 ‘‘Switzerland’s Nominee to the UN Human Rights and the Moammar Khaddafi Human 

Rights Prize,’’ A Report by UN Watch, June 20, 2006, at http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nl/

content3.asp?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1746395&ct=2667241&tr=y&auid=1788830, (September 1, 

2006). 22 ‘‘Special Procedures assumed by the Human Rights Council,’’ Office of the United Nations 

High Commissioner for Human Rights, at http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/special/

index.htm, (September 1, 2006). 

Council remains only marginally better than the Commission. Of the 47 new members, only 24 were ranked as ‘‘free’’ by Freedom House in its 2006 worldwide survey 

of political rights and civil liberties versus 24 on the 53 member Commission.19 The 

new Council includes 9 countries ranked ‘‘not free’’ in political and civil liberties: 

Algeria, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and 

Tunisia. Only 19 Council members were ranked as ‘‘free’’ or ‘‘mostly free’’ by the 

2006 Index of Economic Freedom, published by The Heritage Foundation and The 

Wall Street Journal, versus 18 on the Commission in 2006.20

This situation should surprise no one. After all, every nation claims membership 

in the U.N. even though many fail to adhere to the principles embodied in the U.N. 

Charter, including the commitment to fundamental human rights. Indeed, many 

member states actively subvert those principles and repress their own populations—

less than half of the United Nations member states are ranked as ‘‘free’’ by Freedom 

House in terms of political rights and civil liberties and less than half were ranked 

as economically ‘‘free’’ or ‘‘mostly free’’ by the Index of Economic Freedom. Public 

scrutiny and pressure surrounding the election of the Council’s first slate of members failed to spur conscientious behavior. We can expect little improvement as pressure and scrutiny will likely decline in future elections. 

THE THIRD FAILED TEST

The Human Rights Council convened for the first time on June 19, 2006. The first 

session was marked by procedural issues designed to carry on many of the operations of the CHR. For instance, the Council extended the mandates of the 28 thematic and 13 country mandates established by the Commission and carried out by 

independent human rights experts (known as Special Procedures). The Council also 

established a ‘‘working group’’ to begin to consider how the universal periodic review 

of the human rights performance of all U.N. member states should operate, how 

often countries should be reviewed, and when to begin the reviews. 

This modest action was disappointing. The extension of mandates was both good 

and bad. Some experts conduct important work and there was significant effort put 

forth by some countries to eliminate the country-specific monitors. However, not all 

mandates or experts are worthwhile. For instance, Jean Ziegler is the current Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and also serves as the vice-president of the 

organization that grants the ‘‘Moammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize.’’ 21 Other 

rapporteurs have ventured far from the core functions of their mandates. The Council established an ‘‘open-ended intergovernmental working group to formulate concrete recommendations on the issue of reviewing and, where necessary, improving 

and rationalizing all mandates, mechanisms, functions and responsibilities.’’ 22 It is 

uncertain to what extent the mandates and the rapporteurs will be scrutinized or 

if the Council will undertake to tighten their mandates. 

The fact that the Council undertook little action toward implementing the universal periodic review was unacceptable. This process was considered the most important achievement that would keep the Council from replicating the worst weaknesses of the Commission. It is unknown whether the system that is ultimately established will conduct its assessments of human rights practices with the frequency 

and frankness that would make the Council a true improvement over the Commission. 

A serious disappointment was the inability of the Council to adopt a resolution 

addressing the victims of Darfur, but the singular failure of the first Council session 

was the hostility of the body toward Israel. On this subject, the Council proved just 

as vulnerable to politicization and selective judgment as the Commission. In an extended de ́ja` vu experience, the Council—led by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) repeatedly—singled out Israel for censure despite the efforts of some 

Western countries:

43

23 ‘‘Report to the General Assembly on the First Session of the Human Rights Council,’’ Human Rights Council, First session 19–30 June 2006, A/HRC/1/L.10/Add.1, July 5, 2006, at 

www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/L.10add.1.doc, (September 1, 2006). 24 ‘‘Implementation of General Assembly Resolution 60/251 of 15 March 2006 Entitled ‘Human 

Rights Council’,’’ Human Rights Council, First Session, A/HRC/1/L.6*, June 29, 2006, at http:/

/daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/LTD/G06/128/30/PDF/G0612830.pdf, (September 1, 2006). 25 ‘‘First special session of the Human Rights Council, 5–6 July 2006,’’ Human Rights Council, 

at http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/index.htm, (September 1, 2006). 26 ‘‘2nd Special session of the Human Rights Council, Geneva, 11 August 2006,’’ Human Rights 

Council, at http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/2/index.htm, (September 

1, 2006). 

• The Council’s only substantive debate was subject to invective directed at 

Israel. Efforts by the OIC to focus the agenda solely on Israel were overcome. 

But the five topics on the agenda were led by the ‘‘human rights situation 

in the occupied Arab Territories, including Palestine.’’

• The Council’s sole country-specific resolution censured Israel by a vote of 29 

to 12 and adopted a decision to discuss human rights violations committed 

by Israel in the Palestinian territories a permanent basis in all of the Council’s meetings. No mention was made of Palestinian provocations or human 

rights violations.23

• The Council extended all the mandates of the Commission for specified periods, except for the ‘‘Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in 

the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967’’ which was extended ‘‘until the 

end of the occupation.’’ 24

• Immediately following the end of the first session, the Council held its first 

‘‘Special Session’’ with the support of 21 out of 47 members, during which it 

censured Israel and decided to dispatch the Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories on a fact-finding mission.25

• The Council convened its second ‘‘Special Session’’ on August 11, 2006 during 

which it adopted a resolution 27 to 11 with 8 abstentions that strongly condemned Israel for ‘‘violations of human rights and breaches of international 

humanitarian law in Lebanon’’ and established a high-level inquiry commission for Lebanon which was immediately dispatched to the region.26 There 

was no reference to provocations by Hezbollah beyond a vague call for ‘‘all 

concerned parties’’ to respect the rules of international humanitarian law, refrain from violence against civilians, and to treat detained combatants and civilians in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. 

CONCLUSION

The hope that a new Human Rights Council would rectify the poor record of the 

United Nations Commission on Human Rights on holding human rights abusers to 

account has, sadly, proven illusory. The reformed body does not incorporate the 

types of reforms that would have led inevitably to a more effective body. While the 

HRC has the potential to be a stronger body than its discredited predecessor, such 

an outcome depends entirely on the actions of its members. Based on the short 

record of the Council, the members have turned their back on this opportunity and 

have chosen to repeat many of the serious mistakes of the Commission. This disappointing situation underscores the wisdom of the Bush Administration in taking 

a wait-and-see attitude toward the Council. 

The Council will convene again in September 2006 for three weeks; in December 

2006 for two weeks; and in March 2007 for four weeks. All of these sessions present 

opportunities for the Council to review the mandates, adopt a strong universal peer 

review process, and distance itself from the disgraceful preoccupation with Israel 

that characterized its first session. Indeed, the U.S. should work with Council members to:

• Ensure that the Council members with the worst human rights records—Algeria, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia—be the first targets of 

the periodic reviews. There will be enormous pressure to water down the peer 

review process. One way to quickly gauge how useful the process will be is 

to have the countries with the worst human rights records—those most interested in whitewashing the reviews—assessed first. The quality of these reviews will be a useful tool to measure the dedication, effectiveness, and willingness of the HRC to confront human rights abusers and to resist the influence of those most determined to undermine its work. Only if the HCR conducts strong, condemnatory reviews of these well-known abusers should the 

U.S. consider seeking a seat in the future.

44

• Maintain country-specific mandates. Countries with poor human rights 

records have been transparent in their desire to have country-specific mandates minimized. They oppose them because they dislike being singled out. 

Some have suggested that the peer review process and the opportunity to call 

special sessions reduce the necessity for such mandates. However, countryspecific mandates are a valuable means for addressing gross, systematic, and 

sustained human rights abuses by singling out individual nations and demanding action. They should not be abandoned.

• Subject the review of mandates to a stringent process. Too often the special 

rapporteurs range widely from their assigned areas. They also are subject to 

politicization. The review of mandates should strive to more tightly define 

and focus their scope to the issue under consideration.

Despite the disheartening beginning of the Council, HRC members possess the 

ability to change course and demonstrate that they are determined to make the 

body an effective advocate for fundamental human rights. Only if this occurs should 

the U.S. consider running for a seat on the Council. If the peer review process is 

inconclusive or incomplete by the spring, the U.S. should again wait a year before 

deciding whether to run for a seat. If the peer review process or the review of mandates continues to fall short, or the disgraceful politicization of the Council persists, 

it would be a telling sign that the HRC is not worth the trouble of rallying the support necessary to win a seat. Moreover, it should lead the U.S. to reconsider its financial support for the Council. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I would be pleased to answer any 

questions the committee may have.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Schaefer, thank you very much. 

Mr. Neuer. 

STATEMENT OF MR. HILLEL C. NEUER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

UNITED NATIONS WATCH 

Mr. NEUER. Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the 

Committee, thank you for the privilege of testifying at today’s hearing on a vital international issue, the universal protection of 

human rights. 

UN Watch, the NGO that I direct, is dedicated to holding the UN 

accountable to its own charter principles and to promoting human 

rights for all. UN Watch was founded by a leading advocate of the 

civil rights movement, the late Morris Abram, following his term 

as U.S. Ambassador to the UN in Geneva. We continue to be based 

in Geneva, and actively participate in proceedings of the UN 

human rights apparatus that is headquartered there. 

The new Human Rights Council was widely hailed by proponents 

as ‘‘the dawn of a new era.’’ So far, however, it looks virtually the 

same as and in some ways worse than its discredited predecessor, 

the Human Rights Commission. Let me be clear. Modest progress 

is still possible. 

As mentioned, annual elections allow for scrutiny of candidates, 

enabling the defeat of a few human rights violators, as happened 

this year with Iran. The Council is working on a universal review 

mechanism meant to examine the rights records of all countries 

equally. If achieved and if that process will mean more than having 

the Saudis fill out a questionnaire ensuring the UN of its commitment to women’s rights, or the Castro regime of its respect for freedom of speech, this would be an improvement. 

In certain areas then, with a great deal of hard work and moral 

courage, one can imagine a future that is somewhat brighter. But 

if we look honestly at the reality so far, at the existing facts, the 

record speaks for itself. Despite holding three sessions that purported to address substantive human rights issues, the Council 

45

managed to ignore virtually all of the world’s human rights violations. 

The situation in Darfur, perhaps today’s greatest abuse of human 

rights, merited only a brief passing debate with Sudan easily escaping censure. Despite urgent warnings of even worse atrocities to 

come, there has been not a single attempt by Council members to 

convene a special session for the millions of victims in Darfur, nor 

am I aware of a single Council member that intends to introduce 

a resolution for the victims of Darfur or anywhere else at the upcoming September session. 

Mr. Chairman, as you rightly mentioned, instead the Council, 

which is dominated by countries from the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the OIC, devoted 100 percent of its country-specific resolutions, two special sessions, one ‘‘fact-finding mission,’’ and a ‘‘high-level Commission of inquiry’’ to one single purpose— the demonization of Israel. 

In these one-sided and politically motivated attacks, the Council 

decided that Israel is the world’s only human rights violator. It 

said not a word about Hamas and Hezbollah, not a word about 

their murderous attacks across international borders, not a word 

about the role of Iran and Syria as was mentioned in coordinating 

the axis of terror that now threatens the peace of the region, and 

indeed the peace of the world. These resolutions encourage extremists and are counter-productive to the cause of peace and human 

rights. 

Just like at the old Commission, we have a pack of repressive regimes at the Council that shamelessly hounds Israel at every opportunity. What is disturbing, however, is that several free countries have also decided to, in Senator Moynihan’s memorable 

words, ‘‘join the jackals.’’ UN Watch is disappointed that democratic states like India, 

South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay all lent 

their support for the OIC initiatives, each of which contravenes the 

founding principles of the Council, and, taken together, amount to 

an assault on its very integrity. In the report released today by UN 

Watch, these countries are designated as being counter-productive 

to the cause of human rights. 

The attitude of the Council has negatively influenced related entities. Last month the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial 

Discrimination called its own special session on the Lebanon crisis 

on the pretext that Israel was acting out of ‘‘racist motives.’’

Though a few members rightly objected that the crisis was completely outside the panel’s mandate, this was to no avail. 

All of this on the same day that Iran’s President Mahmoud 

Ahmadinejad renewed his blood-thirsty call for the destruction of 

the Jewish state. 

Then there was the Council’s advisory Sub-Commission. It is prohibited by its own rules from addressing specific countries, but law 

and precedent went out the window in the rush to condemn Israel, 

and it too intervened with a one-sided statement on the situation 

in Lebanon. Not a word on Hezbollah’s missile attacks against 

Israeli citizens. Not a word on Israeli victims. The member from 

the United Kingdom warned they would be ‘‘breaking the rules’’

but to no avail. In the end even she joined the jackals. 

46

When I protested to one of the Sub-Commission members, with 

a chuckle he replied, ‘‘And do you think the Council will admonish 

us?’’

The Organization of the Islamic Conference and its allies, the 

countries that sponsor and support the demonization of Israel are 

the same that sponsor and support attacks on democracy. At a time 

when the world is threatened by re-emergent terrorist groups acting in the name of global jihad, the OIC-controlled Council further 

encouraged extremists by adopting a resolution against ‘‘defamation of religions.’’ This was in fact a thinly veiled endorsement of 

the fury of violence that followed the Danish newspaper cartoon 

controversy. 

For the past year, the OIC has assiduously stoked this fury by 

demanding and winning repeated pronouncements from the High 

Commissioner, independent experts, and the Council, indeed the 

very charter of the Council, the GA resolution adopted in March is 

tainted by its own thinly veiled approval of the violent reactions to 

the cartoon controversy. It is in the preamble. 

These OIC-sponsored texts are meant to intimidate domestic dissidents by characterizing liberal democracy as blasphemy. 

Mr. Chairman, there were warnings about all of this, but the response too often was complacency. For 2 months prior to its opening, the Council held preliminary meetings in Geneva to plan its 

agenda. I was there. Hypocrisy was rampant. Yet no country bothered to respond. Saudi Arabia, whose schoolbooks teach hatred of 

all non-Muslim infidels, pronounced itself on ‘‘incitement of religious hatred.’’ Syria, which held Lebanon under its jack-boot for 

decades, urged special attention to the crimes of occupation. The 

Palestinian observer, who answers to the Hamas terrorist leadership, opined about human rights. 

The response—silence. This sent a message. 

There were many other negative signs. The Council in its wisdom 

decided to renew as one of its experts Mr. Jean Ziegler, the man 

who, in 1989, co-founded the Moammar Khadaffi Human Rights 

Prize, an award that in 2002 he went on to win himself together 

with convicted French Holocaust denier, Roger Garaudy. Mr. Ziegler has abused his post as an expert on the right to food, neglecting the world’s hungry to pursue a radical political agenda, regularly accusing the United States of causing all the world’s misery 

and of committing genocide against Cuba. Last year he compared 

Israel to Nazi Germany. 

Allow me to salute you, Mr. Chairman, and the 69 other Members of Congress who wrote to the UN to protest this anti-Semitic 

act. 

The old Commission was most famously and fatally discredited 

by its election of Libya as Chair in 2003, as was mentioned. Now, 

as one of its first acts the Council has appointed Khadaffi’s man 

at the UN to be one of its experts. This too sends a message. 

Mr. Chairman, to conclude, despite unfounded claims of a new 

era, the goal of real reform remains elusive. Only by honestly addressing both the Council’s strengths and weaknesses will the 

cause of reform be advanced. Complacency in the face of this serious crisis of credibility will only lead the Council down the same 

47

1 UN Watch is a non-governmental organization dedicated to monitoring the UN according to 

the principles of its Charter, and to the promotion of human rights worldwide. Based in Geneva, 

UN Watch was founded in 1993 by the late Morris Abram, former U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva and a leading advocate of the civil rights movement. Board members 

include human rights advocates and scholars from around the globe, including Per Ahlmark, 

former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden, and Professor Irwin Cotler, international human 

rights lawyer and former Attorney General of Canada. Affiliated with the American Jewish 

Committee, UN Watch is chaired by Alfred H. Moses, a former U.S. ambassador and presidential special envoy to Europe. UN Watch is at the forefront in the struggle against anti-Semitism at the UN, and has been outspoken for victims of religious persecution in China, political 

repression in Zimbabwe, the violation of women’s rights in Iran, and many other causes. It is 

accredited by the UN as a NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social 

Council (ECOCOC). 2See, infra, Section D regarding the Council’s human rights experts. 

ignominious path of the old Commission. But, if we act now with 

conviction and alacrity the Council may yet meet a better fate. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Neuer follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. HILLEL C. NEUER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNITED

NATIONS WATCH

REFORM OR REGRESSION? AN ASSESSMENT OF THE UN’S NEW HUMAN RIGHTS

COUNCIL

I. INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

Good afternoon and thank you for the privilege of testifying at today’s hearing on 

a vital international issue: our collective commitment to protect human rights. 

My name is Hillel Neuer and I am the executive director of UN Watch, a nongovernmental organization that holds the United Nations accountable to the principles of its Charter—most notably, the principles of human rights and equality. 

Based in Geneva, we devote special attention to monitoring the UN human rights 

apparatus that is headquartered there.1

On March 15, 2006, by Resolution 60/251, the UN General Assembly created a 

new human rights body, the Human Rights Council (the ‘‘Council’’), to replace the 

old Commission on Human Rights (the ‘‘Commission’’). To date, the Council has met 

in one regular session (June 19 to 30) and two special sessions (July 5–6 and August 

11). The next regular session is scheduled for September 18 to October 6. 

In this statement we assess the work of the Council so far. Our conclusion: despite looking promising on paper, the Council in practice has, sadly, proved to be 

much the same as—and in some ways worse than—the Commission. 

One cannot discount the possibility of certain modest improvements in the future. 

So far, however, the Council’s record has been a profound disappointment. Despite 

holding three sessions that purported to address substantive human rights issues, 

the Council has managed to ignore most of the world’s worst abuses. The situation 

in Darfur—perhaps today’s worst case of mass human rights abuse—merited only 

a brief passing debate, with Sudan easily escaping censure. Notwithstanding urgent 

warnings of even worse atrocities to come, there has been no attempt by Council 

members to convene a special session for the millions of Darfur victims. Instead, the 

Council, dominated by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), devoted 

100% of its country-specific resolutions, two special sessions, one ‘‘fact-finding’’ mission, and a ‘‘high-level commission of inquiry’’ to one-sided and politically-motivated 

attacks on Israel, all of which granted effective immunity to violations of international law by Hamas and Hezbollah. 

Moreover, at a time when the world is threatened by re-emergent terrorist groups 

acting in the name of global Jihad, the OIC-controlled Council provided further encouragement to extremists by adopting resolution HRC/1/L.16—a thinly-veiled endorsement of the fury of violence that followed the Danish newspaper cartoon controversy. This same malignant spirit saw the Council allow the blatant breach of 

mandate by its advisory Sub-Commission, which, not to be outdone, purported to 

censure Israel despite its express legal incapacity to censure any country. Finally, 

in what seemed like a defiant demonstration of fealty to the old Commission, which 

was fatally discredited by the election of Libya as Chair in 2003, the Council reappointed as one of its experts the co-founder of the ‘‘Moammar Khaddafi Human 

Rights Prize.’’ 2

48

3 Cuba, Libya (its 2003 chair), Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, for example. 

4 At the Commission, over a 40-year period, 30 percent of the resolutions condemning human 

rights violations by specific states were against Israel—and in the several years preceding its 

disbanding, that percentage rose to half. In 2005, for example, the Commission adopted four resolutions against Israel, equaling the combined total of resolutions against all other states in the 

world. (Belarus, Cuba, Myanmar, and North Korea were the subject of one resolution each.) For 

more information on the Commission’s anti-Israel bias, see Hillel C. Neuer, ‘‘The Struggle 

against Anti-Israel Bias at the UN Commission on Human Rights,’’ Jerusalem Center for Public 

Affairs, January 1, 2006 (available under ‘‘Articles’’ at www.unwatch.org). 5 Report of the Secretary-General, ‘‘In larger freedom: towards development, security and 

human rights for all,’’ March 21, 2005 (A/59/2005). Mr. Annan’s proposed reforms were stronger 

than those ultimately enacted. He envisioned a smaller, more efficient body, with a strengthened 

mandate and a more credible membership, elected by a two-thirds vote. Six months of contentious negotiations in the General Assembly, however, resulted in the watered-down compromise 

text that became Resolution 60/251. UN Watch supported Mr. Annan’s stronger reforms and was 

disappointed by the lesser changes enacted in Resolution 60/251. See, e.g., Steven Edwards, 

‘‘Canada backs new UN Human Rights body,’’ National Post, March 16, 2006 (‘‘’The council falls 

short of what we in the human rights community have requested for many years. It’s not what 

Kofi Annan asked for a year ago. And we’re concerned that in June the faces around the table 

will look awfully familiar,’ said Hillel Neuer, a Montrealer serving as executive director of monitoring group UN Watch’’); UN Watch, ‘‘New Human Rights Council Proposal Falls Short,’’ Press 

Release, February 23, 2006. 6Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Statement at Press Conference, June 15, 2006. 7 Address to Human Rights Council, June 19, 2006. 

The OIC’s subversion of the world’s top human rights body for blatantly political 

ends would not be successful without willing allies. Predictably, repressive regimes 

like China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia have all lent their support for the OIC initiatives, each of which contravenes the founding principles of the Council and, taken 

together, amount to an assault on its integrity. What is disturbing, however, is that 

some free countries have also decided to—in Senator Moynihan’s memorable 

words—join the jackals. Those joining include not only members of the Soviet-era 

Non-Aligned Movement like India, but also the South American countries of Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. All of these, as explained in the comparative table below, we have designated as counter-productive to human rights protection. 

By contrast, a solid minority alliance of eleven Council members has emerged to 

defend the principles, values and institutions of liberal democracy which the Council 

is supposed to promote. The Council’s de facto democratic alliance is comprised of 

its European Union (EU) members (Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, 

Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom), EU-aligned countries (Romania and 

Ukraine), Canada and Japan. This democratic alliance we have designated as constructive. 

Others were mixed: countries like Cameroon, Ghana, and Nigeria supported some 

of the OIC measures, but, on the grossly one-sided resolution of the second special 

session, constructively defied both their African and OIC group alliances in abstaining. Switzerland admirably opposed both of the one-sided and inflammatory OIC 

resolutions of the regular session, but regrettably refused to join the democratic alliance in opposing those of the special sessions. 

Our diagnosis of the Council’s ills does not mean that supporters of reform should 

give up on pursuing every opportunity to remedy them, such as by cultivating the 

potentially positive universal periodic review mechanism, or by working to strengthen the quality of Council membership through the partially-improved annual election procedure. On the contrary, those who desire a truly reformed Council must 

begin by addressing its serious failings with the same candor and courage exercised 

by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last year in his diagnosis of the Commission. 

As Mr. Annan acknowledged, the Commission was discredited by its poor membership and performance. In recent years, it included some of the world’s worst 

human rights violators.3 It was known for its indifference to the vast majority of 

the world’s most pernicious and persistent abuses, and for its obsessive and unbalanced condemnation of one country—Israel.4 Indeed, in the words of Secretary-General Annan, the Commission’s ‘‘credibility deficit’’ was ‘‘cast[ing] a shadow on the 

reputation of the United Nations system as a whole,’’ and he called for meaningful 

reform.5 Before the new Council’s first meeting, Mr. Annan expressed his hope that 

it would avoid the ‘‘selectivity and politicization’’ that had characterized the Commission. Mr. Annan addressed the most egregious example when he specifically 

urged the Council not to focus on Israel alone.6

The Council was widely hailed by proponents of the March resolution as ‘‘the 

dawn of a new era,’’ in the words of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour.7 ‘‘I claim that it is clearly better,’’ said General Assembly President Jan 

49

8 ‘‘The World Tonight’’, BBC Radio, May 10, 2006. 9Mr. Eliasson further described the Council as ‘‘a body whose members would uphold the 

highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights,’’ and as ‘‘a body that would 

advance the founding principles that were initiated by the General Assembly with the Universal 

Declaration of Human Rights.’’ Official Record of General Assembly Plenary Meeting (A/60/

PV.72), March 15, 2006. 10 ‘‘UN General Assembly overwhelmingly endorses new rights council,’’ Agence France Presse, March 15, 2006. 11 ‘‘Article by the Swedish Prime Minister Go ̈ran Persson and Mexico’s President Vincente 

Fox,’’ April 3, 2006. Council President Luis de Alba of Mexico described the Council as ‘‘a new 

institution able to respond to the expectations of the world’s peoples’’ and ‘‘an opportunity to 

overcome the deficiencies’’ of the past. Address to Human Rights Council, June 19, 2006. 12 Address to Human Rights Council, June 19, 2006. The resolution created an institution 

‘‘with greater legitimacy,’’ said Peter Maurer, Switzerland’s UN ambassador. ‘‘We do not share 

the intransigent and maximalist approaches of certain delegations, who want to make us believe 

that they are the only ones fighting for an ambitious human rights machinery,’’ he added. Official summary of General Assembly debate, March 15, 2006. 13 Human Rights Watch, ‘‘New Rights Council Offers Hope for Victims,’’ Press Release, March 

15, 2006; see also Amnesty International, ‘‘UN Human Rights Council: A Victory for Human 

Rights Protection,’’ Press Release, March 15, 2006 (welcoming the Council’s creation as ‘‘an historic step toward strengthening the U.N.’s human rights machinery’’ and ‘‘a victory for human 

rights protection around the world’’); Amnesty International, About the Proposed Human Rights 

Council, March 13, 2006 (stating that ‘‘[t]he new Human Rights Council would offer far-reaching, long-lasting and positive opportunities to further human rights protection’’); NGOs Make 

Urgent Appeal to U.N. Member States to Back Human Rights Council Resolution, March 9, 2006 

(63 NGOs—including Amnesty International, the Conference of NGOs (CONGO), Human Rights 

First, Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists, and the International 

Service for Human Rights, among many others—calling the draft that became Resolution 60/

251 ‘‘a sound basis to strengthen the U.N.’s human rights machinery,’’ and urging its adoption). 14Following the election of Council members on May 9, 2006, a BBC Radio interviewer asked 

Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth whether he was concerned that a majority of Council members had voted in the General Assembly against action for the victims of 

Darfur. ‘‘They have to condemn Sudan for what’s going on in Darfur,’’ replied Mr. Roth, ‘‘and 

I have every confidence that they will.’’ The World Tonight, BBC Radio, May 10, 2006. Regrettably, despite holding three sessions, they have not. 

Eliasson, who oversaw the reform negotiations.8 He called Resolution 60/251 ‘‘a new 

beginning for the promotion and protection of human rights.’’ He described the 

Council as a body which would be based on ‘‘dialogue and cooperation’’ and would 

be ‘‘principled, effective and fair.’’ 9

France’s UN envoy Jean Marc de La Sabliere expressed confidence that the Council would be ‘‘more active, more reactive and more demanding,’’ saying ‘‘it shows we 

are serious about reform.’’ 10 Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson and Mexican 

President Vincente Fox described the Council’s creation as ‘‘an historic achievement’’

that would ‘‘improve the life conditions for millions of people.’’ 11 Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, whose web page describes the Council as a Swiss initiative, said that the creation of the Council was a ‘‘major advance in the UN’s history 

of protecting human rights.’’ 12 Many leading human rights NGOs likewise celebrated the new Council as ‘‘a significant improvement.’’ 13 Evidence warning to the 

contrary tended to be dismissed.14

Regrettably, the Council has not lived up to reform advocates’ hopes or to Resolution 60/251’s promises. Its members are supposed to be elected based on their 

human rights records and commitments—yet the first Council includes serial 

human rights violators like China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia. It is supposed 

to promote and protect human rights ‘‘without distinction of any kind and in a fair 

and equal manner,’’ and to base its work on ‘‘the principles of universality, impartiality, objectivity, and non-selectivity’’—yet a full 100% of its country-specific resolutions have condemned Israel, and both of its special sessions were convened for 

the same exclusive purpose, with a one-sided bias that shocked even veteran UN 

diplomats. In this regard, the new Council’s record is even worse than that of the 

old Commission. 

In the sections that follow, we first discuss the standards set for the Council by 

Resolution 60/251. We then assess the Council’s performance in six important areas: 

(1) membership; (2) ending politicization and selectivity, (3) addressing gross human 

rights violations, (4) establishing effective mechanisms, (5) creating a new culture 

of dialogue and cooperation, and (6) championing the UN Charter’s democratic values. Finally, we provide some recommendations for the upcoming session and beyond. 

II. RESOLUTION 60/251’S STANDARDS

Resolution 60/251 gives the Council the following main responsibilities:

50

15The re-jiggering of seats for the Council resulted in gains for the Asian and Eastern European Groups and losses for GRULAC and WEOG. In percentages, the Council is divvied up as 

follows: 27.5% African Group; 27.5% Asian Group; 13% Eastern European Group; 17% GRULAC; 

and 15% WEOG. This roughly corresponds to each group’s current representation in the General 

Assembly (which is 28% African; 28% Asian; 12% Eastern European; 17% GRULAC; and 15% 

WEOG). The Commission had 53 seats, divided as follows: 15 for the African Group (28%), 12 

for the Asian Group (23%), 5 for the Eastern Europe Group (9%), 11 for GRULAC (21%), and 

10 for WEOG (19%). 16Of the 47 Council members, only 25—a slight majority of 53%—are Free democracies under 

Freedom House’s standards. Although this is a small step forward, compared to the 2006 Commission’s figure of 45%, it does not represent a significant break from the past. In addition, in 

terms of press freedom—a key indicator of a country’s respect for individual liberty, human 

rights, and the rule of law—only 15 of the new Council members (32%) ranked in the top third 

of the latest worldwide press freedom index published by Reporters without Borders (Reporters 

Sans Frontie`res). A larger proportion—18 of the members, or 38%—ranked, disappointingly, in 

the bottom third of the index. For more information on Council members’ human rights records, see UN Watch Statement on the UN Human Rights Council, May 15, 2006. 17These nine are: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russian Federation, 

Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia. 

• to promote universal respect for the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction of any kind and in a fair and 

equal manner;

• to address situations of violations of human rights, including gross and systematic violations;

• to promote effective coordination and mainstreaming of human rights within 

the United Nations system;

• to promote human rights education and learning, advisory services, technical 

assistance, and capacity building;

• to serve as a forum for dialogue on thematic issues on all human rights;

• to make recommendations to the UN General Assembly for the further development of international law in the field of human rights;

• to promote the full implementation by UN member states of their human 

rights obligations and commitments;

• to undertake a universal periodic review of every UN member state’s fulfillment of its human rights obligations and commitments; and

• to contribute, through dialogue and cooperation, toward the prevention of 

human rights violations and respond promptly to human rights emergencies.

The resolution requires that the Council’s work ‘‘shall be guided by the principles 

of universality, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity, constructive international dialogue and cooperation with a view to enhance the promotion and protection of all human rights....’’ It further requires Council members to ‘‘uphold the 

highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights, fully cooperate 

with the Council, and be reviewed under the universal periodic review mechanism 

during their term of membership.’’

III. ASSESSMENT

A. Membership 

To understand the Council, one must understand the way its members are elected 

and the composition of its current membership. 

On membership, Resolution 60/251 represents a compromise between the ideals 

of human rights advocates and the realities of UN politics. It provides that Council 

members should be chosen based on their human rights records and commitments, 

but imposes a significant structural constraint: The Council’s 47 seats are divided 

by a set formula among the UN’s five regional groups—some of which have more 

liberal democratic members than others. The Council must always have 13 members 

from the African Group, 13 from the Asian Group, 6 from the Eastern European 

Group, 8 from the Latin American and Caribbean Group (‘‘GRULAC’’), and 7 from 

the Western European and Others Group (‘‘WEOG’’). Regional allotment was the 

practice in the Commission as well, but a re-distribution of seats reduced WEOG’s representation in the Council, a loss for democracies.15

Thus, although membership requires election, supposedly based on human rights 

credentials, by a General Assembly majority (rather than simply appointment by a 

regional group, as at the Commission), the first Council nevertheless remains 47% 

non-democratic.16 Moreover, it still includes nine countries—19% of its members— ranked Not Free by Freedom House in its most recent survey of political rights and 

civil liberties.17 Four of these nine—China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia—are 

51

18 UN Watch Endorsements for Elections to the UN Human Rights Council, May 3, 2006. 

Thankfully, Iran—the fifth particular threat that we identified—failed in its bid for a Council 

seat. 19The Free countries among the African Group members are: Ghana, Mali, Mauritius, Senegal, and South Africa. The Free countries in the Asian Group are: India, Indonesia, Japan, and 

South Korea. By contrast, the GRULAC members are 63% Free; the Eastern European Group 

members, 66% Free; and the WEOG members, fully 100% Free. 20They are: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Djibouti, Gabon, Indonesia, 

Jordan, Malaysia, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, and Tunisia. Seven 

of these countries—Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia—are also members of the Arab League. 21 At the Commission, the support of a majority of the membership was required to convene 

special sessions. 22 Numerically, the OIC wields more power in the Council than it does in the General Assembly, where it represents 29% of the total membership, 51% of the African Group, and 44% of 

the Asian Group. 23 At the Council’s ‘‘historic’’ opening, Mr. Annan urged its new members that their work ‘‘must mark a clean break from the past. . . . What must be apparent, above all, is a change 

in culture. In place of the culture of confrontation and distrust, which pervaded the Commission 

in its final years, we must see a culture of cooperation and commitment.’’ (This notion of a new 

culture was repeated often by the diplomats at the Council. As discussed below in Section E, 

it was never clear what this was supposed to mean, a classic example of how muddled language 

at the UN has often led to muddled thinking and action.) Mr. Annan added that members ‘‘must 

recognize, as the General Assembly did when it established this Council, the importance of universality and objectivity, and the need to eliminate double standards.’’ Mr. Eliasson likewise 

warned Council members to be ‘‘vigilant’’ against ‘‘the negative dynamics of the past,’’ and urged 

them to ‘‘be guided by a spirit of renewed cooperation and of upholding the highest standards 

of human rights’’ and to show ‘‘statesmanship and preparedness not only to examine others but 

also to examine [themselves].’’ High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour called on 

Council members to ‘‘implement a broad concept of universality of rights and freedoms, designed 

to reflect first and foremost individual human dignity, rather than cater to the narrow pursuit 

of national self-interest and regional factionalism.’’

also among Freedom House’s ‘‘Worst of the Worst’’ human rights abusing regimes, 

as well as among five countries UN Watch identified, before the May 9, 2006 election, as particular threats to the Council’s legitimacy.18 Sadly, all four received well 

over the 96-vote threshold that was supposed to prevent human rights violators 

from winning Council membership. Saudi Arabia, for example, won 126 votes, close 

to two-thirds of the Assembly. 

In addition, non-democracies control the Council’s two largest regional groups, Africa and Asia, which together hold a majority (26, or 55%) of the council’s 47 seats. 

Only 30% of the Asian Group members, and 38% of those from the African Group, 

are Free countries under Freedom House’s standards.19

Furthermore, the Council is dominated by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (‘‘OIC’’), the UN’s Islamic bloc. Seventeen OIC countries are members, representing 36% of the Council’s total membership.20 This number is significant, as 

Resolution 60/251 allows one-third of the Council, or 16 members, to convene a special session.21 As discussed below, in the Council’s first two months of existence, the 

OIC has already exercised this power to call special sessions to examine Israel, 

twice. 

OIC countries also dominate both the African and Asian blocs in the Council, 

which together constitute its majority. The OIC holds 9 of the 13 African Group 

seats (69%) and 7 of the 13 Asian Group seats (54%).22 Thus Morocco or Algeria 

will typically head the African Group, and Saudi Arabia the Asian Group. Regrettably, the Islamic bloc—led by its more extremist member states—has abused this 

enormous power by turning the Council into their diplomatic plaything. 

B. Ending Politicization and Selectivity 

The Commission’s downfall was its extreme politicization and selectivity, epitomized by its gross discrimination against Israel. To be sure, Israel must be held accountable for its human rights record like every other UN member state. But at the 

Commission, Israel was not treated like other UN member states—most of whom, 

including egregious human rights abusers, received no Commission scrutiny or condemnation. Instead, Israel was singled out for a unique measure of differential 

treatment. Israel alone was subject to its own special agenda item. Israel alone was 

targeted by no less than half of all country-specific resolutions. Israel alone was 

barred from any of the Commission’s regional groups. 

The new Council was supposed to be different. Secretary-General Annan and others urged the Council to protect its integrity and follow a different path.23 The 

Council’s Arab and Islamic members, however, had other priorities. From the outset, 

they showed themselves to be more interested in using the Council to promote their 

anti-Israel political agenda than to protect human rights, and their numbers alVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:16 Nov 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\AGI\090606\29835.000 DOUG PsN: DOUG
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24The other three issues were: the situation in Darfur, Sudan (but with a whitewashed title: 

‘‘support for the Abuja Peace Agreements by providing back-up assistance for enhancing the promotion and protection of human rights’’); the situation of human rights defenders; and the situation of migratory workers. 25Proving that its interests are political, not human-rights related, the OIC did not introduce 

a resolution concerning the forced displacement, rape and murder of Muslim civilians in Darfur, 

Sudan. The perpetrator of these atrocities is, after all, an OIC-member government, not the 

Jewish state. The OIC did not feel that the situations of human rights defenders or migrant 

workers merited Council resolutions, either. 26The vote count was: 

Yes (29): Algeria, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, 

Gabon, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, 

Philippines, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Uruguay, Zambia. 

No (12): Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom. 

Abstain (5): Cameroon, Ghana, Guatemala, South Korea, Nigeria. 

Absent (1): Djibouti.

27This vote was 33–12–1, as follows: 

Yes (33): Algeria, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon, China, 

Cuba, Ecuador, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritius, 

Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Uruguay, Zambia. 

No (12): Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom. 

Abstain (1): South Korea. 

Absent (1): Djibouti

lowed them to overcome resistance from the democratic alliance. This is to the great 

detriment of the fledgling Council. 

Despite promises to the contrary, selectivity and politicization have marked the 

Council’s first regular session, its two special sessions, its advisory Sub-Commission 

and other related bodies. 

1. The Regular Session 

During the three months between the Council’s creation and inauguration, preparatory sessions in Geneva were dominated by Arab and Islamic states’ incessant 

demands for a special agenda item to censure Israel. Regardless of the meeting’s announced topic, OIC countries insisted on raising the issue, notwithstanding calls 

from other states that the first session should focus on creating the new body’s mechanisms and initially avoid the controversy of country-specific situations. Council President Luis de Alba of Mexico, supported by Canada, members of the EU, and 

other democracies, attempted to ensure an unbiased agenda. As a compromise, it 

was agreed that the first session’s substantive debate would address five issues, 

under a neutral agenda item, and the result would be a consensus Presidential 

statement. 

But the OIC’s power in the Council is such that two of its current causes ce ́le`bres 

were included among the five issues to be discussed: (1) the ‘‘human rights situation 

in the occupied Arab Territories, including Palestine’’ (the Commission’s old antiIsrael item); and (2) preventing the incitement of religious hatred (the OIC’s euphemism for restricting speech or publications—such as the now-infamous Danish cartoons—that Muslims might find offensive).24 The debate itself, held on Monday, 

June 26, was dominated by Arab and Islamic states’ anti-Israel tirades. 

Then, on the session’s final day (Friday, June 30), the OIC broke the agreement 

about the Presidential statement and introduced two last-minute draft resolutions: 

one condemning Israel for alleged human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and one on the incitement of religious hatred.25 That evening, the 

Council adopted the OIC’s anti-Israel draft by a vote of 29 in favor, 12 against, and 

5 abstentions, making the Jewish state the only country in the world that it singled 

out for censure in the session. Members aligned with the EU, Canada and Japan 

were the minority of 12 who voted No.26

The resolution calls for expert reports with Israel prejudged as guilty of violations, 

and forces a permanent anti-Israel agenda item at every future Council meeting. In 

addition, a separate, and otherwise procedural, resolution singled out, at the OIC’s demand, the Council’s Special Rapporteur on Palestine—whose one-sided mandate 

allows for the examination of alleged Israeli violations only—as its only expert mandate with no year of expiry. 

The OIC draft on ‘‘incitement of religious hatred’’ also passed, over objections by 

the democratic alliance that it ignored the countervailing free speech considerations, 

by a vote similar to that on the anti-Israel resolution.27 This resolution was in fact 

a thinly-veiled endorsement of the fury of violence that followed the Danish newsVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:16 Nov 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 5602 F:\WORK\AGI\090606\29835.000 DOUG PsN: DOUG
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28 UN Watch and other NGO’s objected to this. Seelllll 29The members supporting the request were: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, 

Brazil, China, Cuba, Gabon, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mali, Morocco, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia. 30 Hamas tunneled into Israeli territory from Gaza and murdered and kidnapped Israeli soldiers. 31The vote count was: 

Yes (29): Algeria, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, 

Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Pakistan, 

Peru, Philippines, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, 

Uruguay, Zambia. 

No (11): Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, United Kingdom. 

Abstain (5): Cameroon, Mexico, Nigeria, South Korea, Switzerland. 

Absent (2): Djibouti, Gabon.

32 Not only does Mr. Dugard systematically ignore Palestinian acts of terror and their victims, 

he has gone so far as to laud Palestinian militants for their ‘‘determination, daring, and suc- cess.’’ He also regularly attacks the Quartet (of which the UN is a part) and the internationallyrecognized Road Map as too pro-Israel. At the special session, he could not even express sympathy for the kidnapped soldier without saying he also had sympathy for ‘‘all Israel’s young soldiers compelled to serve in the army of an occupying power.’’ 33The members supporting the special session were: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Cuba, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, 

Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia. 34The request was made on August 7. 

paper cartoon controversy. For the past year, the OIC has assiduously stoked this 

fury by demanding repeated pronouncements from the High Commissioner, independent experts, and the Council, culminating in this resolution. Indeed, the very 

charter of the Council—GA Resolution 60/251 of March 15, 2005—is tainted by its 

own thinly-veiled approval of the violent reactions to the cartoon controversy.28

These OIC-sponsored texts are meant to intimidate domestic dissidents by characterizing liberal democracy as equal to blasphemy.

Yet all of this was still not enough. Seconds after the inaugural session concluded, 

the Arab League formally requested an immediate special session to censure Israel 

for recent actions in Gaza. It had the support of 21 of the Council’s members, 5 more 

than the necessary one-third.29

2. The First Special Session 

The outcome of the special session, held on July 5 and 6, was preordained. Both 

the request for it and the OIC-proposed draft resolution were entirely one-sided, 

speaking only of alleged Israeli violations, while completely ignoring the Hamas government’s role—not only in the June 25 incident that that precipitated the Gaza crisis,30 but also in deliberately attacking Israeli civilians. The session itself, held on 

July 5 and 6, consisted primarily of anti-Israel diatribes by Arab and Islamic states, 

including the spectacle of Sudan accusing others of ‘‘war crimes.’’

A Swiss attempt to insert balancing language referring to the conduct and obligations of ‘‘Palestinian armed groups’’ into the OIC draft was rejected, and the resolution passed by a vote of 29–11–5. The 11 No’s came from the same democratic alliance of countries who had opposed the previous Friday’s anti-Israel resolution 

minus Switzerland, which abstained this time.31 In addition to condemning Israel 

alone for the Gaza crisis, the resolution demands an ‘‘urgent fact-finding mission’’

to the area led by the Special Rapporteur on Palestine, John Dugard—whose antiIsrael bias is, even by UN standards, particularly virulent.32

3. The Second Special Session 

After Hezbollah sparked another crisis on July 12, with what Secretary-General 

Annan described as a provocative attack on Israel, the Arab League and the OIC, 

supported by 16 Council members,33 convened another special Council session. This 

session was held on August 11.34 Again, both the request and the OIC-proposed 

draft resolution referenced Israeli actions and violations alone. No mention was 

made of Hezbollah’s incursion into Israel to murder and kidnap Israeli soldiers, its 

firing of thousands of rockets, packed with ball bearings to maximize casualties, at 

Israeli civilians, or its use of Lebanese civilians as human shields. 

In addition to being politically-motivated and one-sided, this special session seemingly violated the UN Charter’s principles of separation of powers. Because the Security Council was already dealing with the Lebanon crisis, Article 12 of the Charter dictates that the Human Rights Council, as a subsidiary of the General Assembly, should not have entered the fray. Also, as a matter of common sense, the session risked complicating the delicate negotiations then underway in New York. 

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35 Algeria alone recognized that there was another party to the crisis, although it neither 

named that party nor described it in a manner consistent with reality: it said that Israel had 

attacked ‘‘a small resistance group that uses rudimentary means to defend themselves.’’ The Algerian representative did not mention Hezbollah’s successful use of a sea-borne cruise missile, 

its night-vision optical equipment or other high-tech weaponry. 36 In its explanation before the vote, Russia thanked the OIC for the amendments and said 

that although it thought that the draft was ‘‘still not perfect,’’ it would nevertheless vote for 

it. 37The only differences from the previous special session were the following: Ghana, Guatemala, and the Philippines, which voted yes at the first session, abstained. Gabon, which was 

absent from the first session, abstained. Mexico, which abstained at the first session, voted yes. 38 Its mandate is clear: ‘‘the Sub-Commission should not adopt country-specific resolutions, decisions or Chairperson’s statements and, in negotiating and adopting thematic resolutions or decisions, should refrain from including references to specific countries.’’ Commission on Human 

Rights Resolution 2005/53. The reason for this is because ‘‘resolutions on country situations risk 

duplication with the work of the Commission and creating a perception of politicization of independent experts.’’ Commission on Human Rights Decision 2000/106, p. 9. 39 As reported in the official UN summary of the meeting: ‘‘FRANCOISE JANE HAMPSON, 

Sub-Commission Expert, said there were two separate issues—whether to do this, and what to 

Again, the debate featured harsh anti-Israel speeches—with no references to 

Hezbollah or its sponsors35 or to Israeli civilian casualties—from Islamic states and 

their allies. Most accused Israel of committing war crimes. Cuba accused Israel of 

‘‘genocidal intent.’’ Tunisia, speaking on behalf of the Arab League, accused Israel 

of violating ‘‘all human rights.’’ Again, the democratic alliance objected to the OIC draft as unfair and one-sided. 

Interestingly, this time Russia, despite having supported the call for the meeting, 

also criticized the draft, calling it ‘‘strongly worded’’ and ‘‘directed only at Israel, 

even though Israelis had suffered.’’ This prompted the OIC to add a sentence urging ‘‘all concerned parties’’ to respect international law—but still no reference to actions 

or violations by, or investigation of, any party other than Israel. This was enough 

to get Russia to vote in favor, but was insufficient for the democratic alliance.36

The OIC resolution passed 27–11–8, with the same 11 members of the democratic 

alliance voting no as at the first special session.37 The resolution ‘‘strongly condemns the grave Israeli violations of human rights and breaches of international humanitarian law’’ and contemplates the urgent dispatch of a ‘‘high-level commission 

of inquiry’’ to investigate Israeli actions only. 

Major international human rights NGOs, including those critical of Israel (both 

generally and for its actions in the Lebanon crisis), quickly and uniformly condemned the session. Amnesty International said that ‘‘members’ focus on their narrow political objectives resulted in a highly-politicised resolution that muted the 

Council’s voice by ignoring the violations of one party to the conflict’’ and that ‘‘failed to meet the principles of impartiality and objectivity expected’’ of the Council. 

Human Rights Watch said that ‘‘the one-sided approach . . . is a blow to [the 

Council’s] credibility and an abdication of its responsibility to protect human rights 

for all. . . . Victims of human rights violations deserve better than the partisan 

fare that the Human Rights Council has offered so far.’’ Reporters Sans Frontie`res ‘‘condemn[ed] this use of the Council for political ends’’ and said that the Council, 

so far, had been ‘‘a repeat of the worst moments of the defunct Human Rights 

Commission . . ., with an automatic, blocking majority imposing its will and doing 

as it pleases,’’ that is, ‘‘exploiting human rights for political ends.’’ Human Rights 

First said that it was ‘‘deeply disappointed’’ by the Council’s failure to respect its 

mandate to be universal, impartial, objective, and non-selective. 

4. The Sub-Commission and Related Bodies 

Unbalanced condemnation of Israel also marred the August session of the Council’s subsidiary, the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human 

Rights (the ‘‘Sub-Commission’’), as well as the recent work of several other Genevabased UN human rights entities. 

The Sub-Commission is a body of 26 supposedly independent, impartial experts 

that provided ‘‘studies, research and expert advice’’ to the Commission. It now falls 

under the jurisdiction of the Council, which must decide whether, and if so in what 

form, it will continue to exist. On August 7, it issued a statement—drafted by the 

Pakistani member (a former foreign minister of leading OIC-member Pakistan)—

that one-sidedly condemned Israel for ‘‘massive denial and violation of human rights 

in Lebanon.’’ The statement not only pointedly ignored Hezbollah’s role in attacking 

Israel and violating the human rights of Israeli civilians, but it blatantly violated 

the Sub-Commission’s legal mandate, which forbids it from addressing country-specific situations.38 The Sub-Commission knew full well that it was violating this restriction, but went ahead anyway.39

55

do if so. The Commission had given express instructions that the Sub-Commission was not to 

pass country-specific resolutions. She had no fundamental objection to challenging this, as long 

as the Sub-Commission was sure of what it was doing. It was inevitable to mention the country 

concerned. The Sub-Commission needed to be sure that it was breaking the rules, and was doing 

so at the very year that its existence was at stake [. . .]’’ (emphasis added). 40For more details, see Hillel C. Neuer, ‘‘Where Israel Still Equals Racism,’’ Jerusalem Post, 

August 10, 2006. 

In addition, in late July, a group of the Council’s Special Rapporteurs, including 

those on freedom of opinion and expression and on the right to ‘‘highest attainable 

standard of physical and mental health’’ issued a statement on the Lebanon crisis, 

despite unclear connections between some of their mandates and the situation. This 

statement claimed a litany of violations by Israel in Lebanon, and described at 

length the suffering of Lebanese civilians, yet begrudged only a mention to Israelis 

forced to hide in bomb shelters and said nothing at all about Israelis killed and injured. The words Hamas and Hezbollah did not appear in the statement at all. 

Finally, on August 3, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination 

(‘‘CERD’’), which is supposed to oversee the implementation of the 1965 International Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, suspended its normal work to debate ‘‘the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon.’’ The session 

was initiated by a few panel members led by Mahmoud Aboul-Nasr, a former Egyptian diplomat and Arab League official. (Mr. Aboul-Nasr is notorious for his 1998 

support of convicted Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, which was roundly criticized 

at the time by his colleague, now CERD Chairman, Regis de Gouttes.) The session 

on Lebanon went ahead despite the objections of others that it threatened the body’s 

legitimacy, being entirely outside CERD’s mandate. It also was framed in a lopsided 

manner, so that the humanitarian suffering of Israeli civilians would be entirely ignored.40

C. Addressing Gross Human Rights Violations 

1. Darfur 

A major test for the new Council will be whether it acts to stop the ongoing crimes 

against humanity in the Darfur region of Sudan. As discussed above, the situation 

in Darfur was indeed addressed in the Council’s first session, but only in veiled 

tones, evoking memories of the Commission’s treatment, in March 2005, of Darfur 

as a matter of ‘‘Technical Cooperation.’’ The Council failed to adopt a resolution for 

the victims of Darfur. Nor, despite attempts by some, could it even agree on the softer measure of a Chairman’s Statement. 

There were no initial plans to raise Darfur, but not to do so would have proved 

embarrassing once the OIC forced a substantive debate on human rights violations. 

That said, in relative terms for the UN, the fact that the situation was debated at 

all marks an improvement over the General Assembly’s deplorable decision—supported by 51% of the Council’s current members—to take ‘‘No Action’’ on Darfur in 

November last year. The Council members supporting inaction in the GA included 

Free countries like Ghana, India, Indonesia, Mali, Senegal and South Africa who, 

despite their membership in the Community of Democracies, have tended to vote 

at the UN according to regional or developing world alliances rather than on their 

democratic values. As Resolution 60/251 requires Council members to put the promotion and protection of human rights before UN politics, we hope these countries 

will vote in the future to protect human rights victims in Darfur and elsewhere, not 

the perpetrators. 

To their credit, a few countries did make substantive statements to the Council 

about Darfur. Austria, on behalf of the European Union, called for ‘‘the end of impunity and of the gross and systematic human rights violations’’ in the region. The 

Netherlands called it ‘‘unacceptable that grave human rights violations continue 

even after Security Council resolutions.’’ Canada, the United States, and Spain 

stressed that Darfur should be among the Council’s priorities. Interestingly, Azerbaijan, Senegal and Mali—all current Council members and all of whom voted in 

favor of the 2005 No Action motion—also expressed concern about the situation in 

Darfur. While we hope this trend continues, the Council’s overall failure to adopt 

any official statement for Darfur’s victims is damning. 

2. Other Situations 

As described above, only 5 substantive human rights issues were on the Council’s 

agenda at its first session: 2 country situations (Israel and Sudan), and 3 thematic 

topics (the human rights of migrants; human rights defenders; and incitement to religious hatred). Some speakers, including UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 

Louise Arbour, urged the Council to consider more specific situations. UN Watch 

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41This Joint NGO Statement lists many grave situations that warrant the Council’s consideration. 42Since his appointment in 2000, Mr. Zielger, a former radical Swiss politician, has paid little 

or no attention to regions with actual hunger crises, instead devoting his energies to polemics 

against the free market, the West, the United States, and, especially, Israel. See UN Watch, 

Jean Ziegler’s Campaign Against America, October 2005; UN Watch, Blind to Burundi, October 

2004. He also has improperly used UN staff and resources to run a campaign urging a commercial boycott of Israel. His substantial ties to dictators like Moammar Khaddafi include being the 

co-founder, longtime vice president, and a past recipient of the ‘‘Moammar Khaddafi Human 

Rights Prize,’’ an award established by the Libyan ruler in 1989 and used to reward prominent 

anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Semitic individuals. See UN Watch, Switzerland’s Nominee to the UN Human Rights Council and the Moammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize, June 

20, 2006. In addition, Mr. Ziegler is the only UN human rights expert in history to be denounced 

by the organization’s highest officials, after he compared Israelis to Nazis, a classic manifestation of anti-Semitism as defined by the EU. ‘‘Annan slams UN official,’’ JTA, July 8, 2005; ‘‘Gaza 

comments by rights expert irresponsible—UN,’’ Reuters, July 7, 2005. Seventy members of the 

U.S. Congress also protested in letters to UN officials. 43The term limit adopted in 1999 is mandatory: ‘‘any individual’s tenure in a given mandate, 

whether thematic or country specific, will be no more than six years.’’ Report of the 55th Session 

of the Commission on Human Rights, Para. 552. The Commission expressly imposed this limit 

‘‘to help maintain appropriate detachment and objectivity on the part of individual office-holders, and to ensure a regular infusion of new expertise and perspectives.’’ Id. 44See Hillel C. Neuer, ‘‘Rights and Wrongs,’’ The New Republic, February 18, 2005. 

and a coalition of NGOs submitted evidence regarding many such countries, but 

none was addressed.41 Instead, regrettably, the Council ignored gross human rights 

violations occurring in countries around the globe. We hope that this was due to the 

shortness of the initial session—only two weeks, most of which necessarily dealt 

with beginning to build the mechanisms of the new body—and does not indicate the 

approach that will be taken in future sessions. 

D. Establishing Effective Mechanisms 

The first Council is mandated to decide the body’s agenda, working methods, and 

rules of procedure, including rules for participation of NGOs and other observers. 

It will ‘‘review, and where necessary improve and rationalize’’ the existing systems 

of independent human rights investigators (known as the Special Procedures), expert advice (the Sub-Commission), and complaints processing (the 1503 procedure). 

It also will create an entirely new system of universal periodic human rights review. 

These are vitally important elements, on which the Council’s ability to address 

human rights problems will stand or fall. 

1. Preserving the Independent Human Rights Experts 

The Council voted to extend for one year the mandates of the 40-odd independent 

human rights experts (known as the Special Procedures) that it inherited from the 

Commission, to allow time for each one to be reviewed. This was a victory over objections from abuser countries like Cuba that preferred immediately to eliminate all 

of the country monitors. Many of these experts do excellent and important work, 

and should be retained. 

However, as mentioned above, the resolution extending the mandates unfairly singled out the Special Rapporteur on Palestine—whose one-sided mandate is to examine alleged Israeli violations only—as the Council’s only mandate with no year of 

expiry. 

In addition, it is regrettable that among the individuals whose mandates were extended is one epitomizing the old Commission’s worst aspects: Jean Ziegler, the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. Mr. Ziegler is a longtime apologist for dictators who has systematically abused his mandate to pursue his extremist political 

agenda, at the expense of hunger victims around the world.42 As Mr. Ziegler had 

reached the six-year term limit for individual mandate-holders, the Council should 

have named someone else to fill this mandate pending its review.43

The Council also decided to extend, also for one year to allow for review, the largely ineffective complaints procedure and Sub-Commission.44 We hope that the Council’s review of these entities over the next year will lead to much-needed improvements. 

2. Developing a Strong Universal Periodic Review 

The universal periodic review that the Council will conduct of the human rights 

performance of all UN member states is its major innovation, and its best hope to 

save the Council from the selectivity and politicization that destroyed the Commission. Whether the system that is ultimately created will amount to more than a superficial questionnaire, however, remains to be seen. 

57

45The speakers—Arnold Tsungo of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights; Natasa Kandic of 

the Humanitarian Law Centre, Belgrade; Sunila Abeyesekera of Inform, Sri Lanka; and Marta 

Ocampo de Vazquez, of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, Argentina—were nominated by CONGO (the 

Conference of NGOs in Consultative Status with the United Nations) upon input from its members. 46See, e.g., the June 26 statement by UN Watch, Union Internationale des Avocats, the 

Transnational Radical Party and 11 other NGOs, which had to be cut short. 

At its first session, the Council established a working group to begin to set up 

the review system. The working group will report on its progress at the upcoming 

September session. 

3. Ensuring Robust NGO Participation 

Resolution 60/251 states that ‘‘the participation of and consultations with observers, including . . . non governmental organizations, shall be based on arrangements 

including ECOSOC resolution 1996/31, and practices observed by the Commission, 

while ensuring the most effective contribution of these entities.’’ Active NGO participation was one of the Commission’s strengths, and it is a victory for human rights 

activists that, against the wishes of some abuser regimes, civil society’s place at the 

Council was assured. The ‘‘while ensuring the most effective contribution’’ language, 

however, is of continuing concern, as it seems to leave open the possibility for restrictions. 

The Council’s overall record on NGO participation at its first three sessions was 

mixed. 

On the positive side, for the first time ever, the ‘‘High Level Segment’’ of speeches 

by dignitaries during the June session’s first week made room for NGOs, represented by 5 prominent personalities.45 In addition, the Council decided, significantly, to include ‘‘all stakeholders’’ in its year-long review of independent expert 

mandates and creation of the universal periodic review mechanism, ensuring that 

the voices of NGOs will continue to be heard on key elements of the new Council. 

Also on the upside, Chairman de Alba has been accessible and attentive to NGOs, 

as have UN staffers, particularly the NGO Liaison Office, whose update emails and 

extranet of relevant documents are invaluable. Webcasts of some of the meetings 

during the first session also made it easier for non-Geneva NGOs to follow the proceedings. We hope that more meetings will be webcast in future sessions. 

As for the negatives: First, the speaking time for joint NGO statements during 

the first session’s substantive debate was reduced dramatically from past levels, 

which prevented NGOs from fully addressing gross violations around the world.46

We hope that this was an exception due to the brevity of the session, and not an 

indication of things to come. 

Also, at the first special session, NGOs were barred completely from speaking 

when debate was suspended, on the Islamic group’s motion, just before civil society 

was slated to start. It was unclear whether this was prompted by the lengthening 

of the afternoon or the desire to censor speech. To its credit, the Council Secretariat 

afterward circulated the statements of all NGOs that were on the speakers’ list to 

the entire UN system, in addition to posting them on the Council extranet. NGOs 

were allowed to speak at the second special session a month later, so we hope that 

the occurrence at the first was an aberration. 

Finally, repressive states continue to threaten NGOs that dare to challenge them. 

At one of the preparatory meetings for the June session, Syria responded to a UN 

Watch question that it did not like by warning that ‘‘NGOs need to be strictly monitored.’’ This left other NGOs scared. Given the ‘‘while ensuring effective participation language,’’ the outnumbered democracies on the Council who support strong 

civil society participation must continue to exercise vigilance. 

E. Creating a New Culture of Dialogue and Cooperation 

Although much-discussed during the reform negotiations and much-trumpeted as 

a great strength of Resolution 60/251, it was never clear what, exactly, this ‘‘new culture’’ was supposed to mean. As too often happens at the UN, ‘‘dialogue and cooperation’’ became a catchphrase that many delegations used, but with no agreed 

definition, each interpreted it however it liked. 

Does it mean that Council members should work together towards consensus positions? This seemed to be the idea behind having one Chairman’s Statement on all 

five specific human rights issues discussed at the June session, but the OIC soundly 

rejected such a compromise. Instead, it submitted two controversial resolutions, and 

then refused to engage in any negotiation over their language. Rather than dialogue 

and cooperation, the OIC’s approach seems to be ‘‘take it or leave it.’’

Does it mean that there should be less inflammatory rhetoric and more respectful 

debate at Council sessions? It appears not, at least when the target is Israel or the 

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47The Cuban began by gloating that it was ‘‘a victory for principles and truth’’ and ‘‘a defeat 

for lies’’ that Cuba was a member of the Council and the United States was not. He then embarked on a long exposition of Cuba’s alleged human rights virtues and the U.S.’s alleged 

human rights sins, including the ‘‘concentration camp’’ at Guantanamo Bay and U.S. support 

for Israel. Apparently, Cuba’s position in the reform negotiations and preparatory sessions that 

specific countries should never be singled out for criticism in the Council does not apply when 

it comes to the U.S. or Israel. (Cuba voted yes on all three resolutions against Israel and supported the convening of both anti-Israel special sessions.) 48Pakistan, now the OIC chair in the Council, made this argument in the most detail. Its 

view was that the Council should only be able to address a country situation if there is clear, 

credible and reliable evidence (not just news reports) of gross and systematic human rights violations being perpetrated by or with the complicity or consent of the government. Even then, 

the situation should first be addressed confidentially by an expert body through dialogue and 

technical and financial assistance. Only if there is clear evidence that the country is not willing 

or able to redress the violations should the Council publicly deal with the matter. To Pakistan, 

gross and systematic violations meriting country-specific review mostly occur in situations of 

armed conflict, particularly in cases of ‘‘foreign occupation’’ and ‘‘suppression of self-determination’’ (i.e. by Israel). In such cases, Pakistan said, the Council should automatically dispatch 

fact-finding missions to assess the situation. 49Tehran prosecutor—general Said Mortazavi, a member of the delegation from Iran, has 

been implicated in the illegal detention, torture and murder of the Iranian-Canadian journalist 

Zahra Kazemi. He also has been involved in prosecuting dissident journalists, closing more than 

100 newspapers, and ordering the arrest and detention of bloggers. 

United States. And the unfortunate tenor of the debate was set right from the Council’s start: In the first week alone, the Cuban foreign minister’s vehemently antiAmerican diatribe was interrupted, unusually, several times for long applause,47

and the disrespect toward Israel included the Syrian calling the Jewish state ‘‘an 

invader from the planet Mars.’’

Does it mean, as many delegations argued during the reform process, that there 

should be no ‘‘naming and shaming,’’ that is, no criticism of specific countries? This 

idea was most vocally advanced by countries from the OIC, the African Group, the 

Asian Group and the Non-Aligned Movement—but as they quickly demonstrated, 

what they meant was no naming and shaming of themselves or their friends. They 

never had any intention of discontinuing the naming and shaming of their favorite 

target, Israel.48

Naming and shaming, in itself, is not the problem. In signing the Charter, all UN 

member states agreed to uphold certain principles, including the promotion and protection of human rights, and those violating these obligations should be criticized. 

The problem is the naming and shaming of one country over and over again, while 

the others get a free ride. In that regard, the Council’s culture, unfortunately, is not 

new at all. 

F. Championing the UN Charter’s Democratic Values 

With the liberal values of the UN Charter and the very concept of universal 

human rights under attack, did the democratic Council members stand up in their 

defense? On this, the record so far was mixed. 

The threat is clear. Repressive regimes continue to seek shelter from scrutiny by 

invoking cultural relativism to undermine the universal application of fundamental 

human rights. Malaysia cited ‘‘distinct national circumstances and varying levels of 

development.’’ China, boasting of its ‘‘people-centric’’ approach, urged consideration 

of ‘‘different social systems and levels of development,’’ and argued for separate 

standards depending on ‘‘countries’ historical, cultural and religious backgrounds 

and differences.’’ That its Islamic members are attempting to morally justify their 

unequal treatment of women, and the Chinese their broad repression of individual 

freedoms, before the Council is a worrying indicator for the body’s future. 

There was, however, one high point of democratic vigilance and moral clarity. 

When it became known that Iran had sent an accused torturer and murderer as 

part of its delegation, Canada demanded his arrest, rightly condemning Tehran’s 

contempt for the Council.49

But when the OIC decided to stoke the flames of outrage over the Danish cartoon 

incident—dismissing any balancing consideration of free speech, and providing 

moral justification and political support for violent protests—the West was largely 

silent. The EU’s statement, for example, smacked of appeasement, with only a passing reference to the freedoms of expression and belief. None of the democracies at 

the Council was willing to proclaim that the proper response to a publication seen 

as objectionable, even offensive, must conform to the norms of free societies, which 

invite peaceful protest and public debate, and abjure all violence. In the end, however, the democratic alliance, although outnumbered, voted against the OIC resolution on this matter, which was commendable. 

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50 A/HRC/Sub.1/58/CRP.13, August 25, 2006. 51 It recommended a body of either the present 26 or 28 members (1 more from Asia and one 

more from Eastern Europe). Seats would still be allocated regionally and members would still 

be nominated by states and elected by the Council. The term of membership would still be four 

years, and members would be able to serve for at least two terms, and possibly longer. (The 

Sub-Commission could not agree whether there should be a maximum number of terms.) Half 

the members would be elected every two years, as is the case now. 52 Under the 1503 procedure, complaints went to the full Commission only after being filtered 

by two extremely politicized bodies: a sub-group of the Sub-Commission and then a sub-group 

of the Commission. See Hillel C. Neuer, ‘‘Rights and Wrongs,’’ The New Republic, February 18, 

2005. Given recent events in the Sub-Commission and Council, however, it is unclear whether 

review of complaints by the entire HRCC and the entire Council would in fact be any less politicized and selective. 53Specifically, the treaty bodies, relevant Special Procedures, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. 54The Resolution provides that ‘‘the Council will assume, review and where necessary improve 

and rationalize, all mandates, mechanisms, functions and responsibilities of the Commission on 

Human Rights, in order to maintain a system of special procedures, expert advise and complaint 

procedure.’’

IV. THE UPCOMING SEPTEMBER SESSION

Sub-Commission Report 

The September session will consider the report that the Sub-Commission has prepared concerning its own future.50 Not surprisingly, the Sub-Commission recommended that it continue to exist, in essentially the same form but with a new 

name: the Human Rights Consultative Commission (‘‘HRCC’’).51 This body’s mandate would be virtually identical to the Sub-Commission’s, but with one interesting 

omission: the report makes no reference to continuing the ban on addressing country-specific situations that, as discussed above, the Sub-Commission recently so blatantly violated. 

The Sub-Commission also recommended that the 1503 complaint procedure be 

continued in essentially the same form. While it did recommend two small 

changes—that the entire HRCC review complaints and decide which ones to refer 

to the Council and that the full Council consider all complaints that are referred 52—these do not address the procedure’s larger problems: its closed nature 

and its toothlessness. 

The Sub-Commission further recommended that an expert body should assist the 

Council with the universal periodic review, although it was split as to whether this 

should be the HRCC or a new, separate body. 

Universal Periodic Review 

The working group on universal periodic review will report on its progress to the 

Council at the September session. This report is not yet available, but the country 

and group position papers that have been submitted to the working group reveal 

several significant divides. 

First, despite the mechanism’s title, its universality is already under threat. Developing countries and the Islamic group argue that the review must take into account their ‘‘level of development’’ and their ‘‘religious and socio-cultural specificities.’’ They also propose that developing countries should be reviewed less often than 

developed ones. 

There is also a dispute over the information on which to base the review. Western 

countries propose that it should not require extensive new reporting, but rather use 

existing information from a variety of sources: UN bodies,53 regional organizations, 

national human rights institutions, NGOs, and the concerned state. The Islamic 

states want state-provided information to be the main source, UN information to be 

secondary, and make no mention of information from NGOs. 

In addition, Western states want NGOs to participate not only by providing information, but also by taking part in the so-called ‘‘interactive dialogue’’ sessions where 

the Council questions the country under examination. The Islamic group argues 

that NGOs should only observe. 

Special Procedures: 

At the September session, the Council will hear reports from all of the current 

Special Procedures, as well as the report of the working group reviewing this system. Resolution 60/251 envisions that the Special Procedures will continue to exist 

in some form, although it does not specify the details.54

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55These attempts take the form of proposals such as: outlawing country-specific mandates; requiring domestic remedies to be exhausted before an expert could consider a situation; turning 

over the selection of experts to the regional groups; and disqualifying people who work for or 

are on the governing board of NGOs from serving as experts. 

Abuser countries can be expected to continue to try to use the ongoing review to 

weaken or destroy the system.55 We hope that the Council’s democracies are able 

to defeat these efforts and ensure that the review results in a coherent and effective 

system of independent, impartial and expert mandate-holders. 

V. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The Council’s record so far has been a great disappointment for the cause of protecting human rights victims worldwide. All Council stake-holders—member states, 

the Secretary-General, the High Commissioner and other leading UN officials, 

NGOs and other observers—have an obligation to speak out and act forcefully 

against the malign subversion of the Council as detailed above. Leading NGOs, particularly after the grossly biased second special session against Israel, have begun 

to condemn the blatant and unrestrained abuse of the Council for political ends. All 

stake-holders must follow this example. 

Supporters of true reform must make their voices heard in opposition to the Council’s culture of anti-Israel bias, which has become a pathology challenging its basic 

integrity and future. They must oppose Israel’s ongoing exclusion from any of the 

Council’s regional groups, the special agenda item, and all of the other discriminatory measures described above. Likewise, they must speak out forcefully—by their 

votes and by their speeches—in defense of liberal democratic principles. Supporters 

of a credible Council should oppose the membership renewal of countries that act 

in a counter-productive manner. 

In a word, I do not believe that we should give up. Rather, we must recognize 

that a truly reformed Council is an enormously uphill battle. Only by honestly identifying both its strengths and weaknesses can we move forward. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Neuer, thank you very, very much. 

Ms. Windsor. 


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STATEMENT OF MS. JENNIFER WINDSOR, EXECUTIVE 

DIRECTOR, FREEDOM HOUSE 

Ms. WINDSOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the 

opportunity to testify here today and for convening this important 

hearing. 

As we have heard, the current situation related to the UN 

Human Rights Council presents a quandary for all of us who care 

about the restoration and strengthening of the UN’s role in promoting human rights. While there has been some important 

progress and reform in a number of areas, there have also been 

some real disappointments, many of which have been laid out by 

my colleague from The Heritage Foundation. 

This mixed record to date forces a strategic decision. Do we all 

distance ourselves until we are certain whether the Council will in 

fact deliver, or engage more actively in the hopes of doing what we 

can to ensure it doesn’t fail? 

First, while Freedom House has had very serious concerns that 

we have put on the public record, we believe that the potential for 

the Council’s success is not yet lost, but that potential will be realized only if the U.S. Government and other democratic countries 

strengthen their efforts to engage and collaborate. 

As you can see from the attachments to my testimony, perhaps 

the most significant positive aspect of the new Council is that a 

preponderance of states professing a commitment to democracy and 

ranked by Freedom House as free in our annual survey of freedom 

make up the current membership. Indeed, over 75 percent of the 

Council’s members belong to the community of democracies. 

The constraints and challenges are also obvious. The lack of more 

specific criteria for memberships still resulted in almost a dozen 

countries ranked as not free elected. 

Freedom House also shares the concerns previously mentioned 

here today about the unbalanced focus on Israel alone in the last 

two special sessions while ignoring the human rights violations of 

non-state actors, including Hamas, Hezbollah and their state sponsors. 

The Council needs to prove that it can act, and that it can live 

up to its potential. The effectiveness of the Council will be judged 

perhaps most importantly on its willingness and ability to take action, including utilizing country-specific resolutions to address the 

most pressing human rights violations around the world, and we 

endorse what the Administration—the focus that the Administration has put on that earlier today. 

In terms of what the Council should focus on in terms of countries, we have released today our annual compilation of a document 

called ‘‘The Worst of the Worst.’’ These are the most repressive 

countries in the world according to our annual survey of political 

rights and civil liberties that we have been doing every year for 30 

years. This survey, in reference to the Congressman’s earlier question related to a survey based on the Universal Declaration of 

Human Rights is in fact drawn from that declaration. 

We believe that these situations described here represent the 

minimal to-do list in terms of priority country action, and I would 

mention in addition to the Darfur region, which has been already 

mentioned, the issue of North Korea, where hundreds of thousands 

67

of citizens are held in political gulags, others face torture and arbitrary execution, as well as Burma where the military junta continues to carry out extrajudicial executions, detaining freely elected 

leaders, and carrying out forced relocation of ethnic minorities. 

We also believe that the new procedure for removing members of 

the Council who commit ‘‘gross and systematic violations of human 

rights’’ must be put in place. Without any procedures put in place, 

there can be no action to remove Council members, and we believe 

that the situation in a number of member states, including China, 

Cuba and Saudi Arabia, clearly meet that standard for removal. 

Finally, we believe that the Council needs to address a worrying 

trend that directly impacts the human rights situations in many 

countries—the number of governments that are issuing laws, regulations and taking actions designed to restrict freedom of association, assembly, and information of their own citizens. Freedom 

House is working with other groups to try to raise the importance 

and profile of this issue. 

Key to the Council’s future success will be the leadership role 

played by the members of the community of democracies, which 

comprises something called the UN Democracy Caucus as you well 

know. To date, Democracy Caucus members have yet to adequately 

act on opportunities to advance human rights at the United Nations. Some of them, including, unfortunately, the current leadership, the Government of Mali, have abstained or voted against UN 

General Assembly resolutions on some of the worst abusers, and 

Council vote tallies indicate that others did not abide by their 

pledge to vote for those countries that met clear human rights 

standards. 

I want to use the remaining portion of my time to address the 

role of the U.S. Government which, unfortunately, is not a member 

of the Council, having decided not to present itself as a candidate 

for Council membership. We believe that this has severely limited 

the impact and influence of the U.S. Government’s diplomatic efforts. 

I want to start by saying that I have the highest respect for the 

two Administration officials that testified here today. They are both 

enormously talented professionals. But while they have persuasively outlined how the Administration has been working diligently 

behind the scenes, the U.S. Government has clearly missed important opportunities. 

If the U.S. is to be persuasive and effective with the Council, the 

Administration needs to communicate clearly that the Council is a 

priority, and design and implement a worldwide politically finetuned and tirelessly carried out strategy, not just work through 

New York, Geneva, and other regular representatives. The U.S. has 

some of the most talented diplomats in the world. We are the 

world’s only remaining super power. Why are we continuing to fail 

to persuasively engage the international community in promoting 

human rights and fundamental freedoms at the UN? 

Finally, as today’s hearings reenforce, we believe that the U.S. 

Congress has an important and valuable role to play in strengthening the Council. We do not believe that that role should include 

conditioning funding to the United Nations on the Council’s performance, which we think would in fact be counterproductive. 

68

1See Freedom House press release, May 25, 2006, attached, and available at 

www.freedomhouse.org. 

Rather, our energies should be devoted to encouraging a more effective, not necessarily a more bellicose diplomacy from the U.S. 

Government, and to raise directly with other democratic governments, many of whom request meetings with yourself and other 

Members of Congress, on the importance of ensuring the Council 

take effective action against country-specific human rights violations. 

For its part, Freedom House will continue to engage in the work 

of the Council, particularly in facilitating the access of human 

rights defenders and democracy activists to that body in order to 

directly provide information on situations where infringements and 

violations of internationally recognized freedoms are occurring. 

Mr. Chairman, we look forward to working together to catalyze 

the efforts of the U.S. Government and other democratic members 

of the Council to ensure that the new Human Rights Council’s actions in the future restores and indeed strengthens the role of the 

UN in protecting human rights around the world. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Windsor follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. JENNIFER WINDSOR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FREEDOM

HOUSE

I would like to thank the Subcommittee for the opportunity to provide testimony 

on this important issue. 

The current situation related to the United Nations Human Rights Council presents a quandary for all of us who care about human rights and fundamental freedoms and the important and unique role to be played by the United Nations in protecting and advancing those rights and freedoms. While there has been some important progress and reform in a number of areas, there have also been some real disappointments, including in the text of General Assembly Resolution 60/251,1 in the 

election of certain states to the Council, and in some of the actions the Council has 

taken since June. This mixed record to date forces a strategic decision: do we all 

distance ourselves until we are certain what the future will bring for the Council, 

or engage more actively in the hopes of doing what we can to encourage Members 

of the Council to take steps to reinforce its effectiveness? 

While we continue to have serious concerns, Freedom House believes that the potential for the Council’s success is not yet lost. We believe that the U.S. government 

and other democratic countries should make every effort to strengthen, not weaken, 

their engagement with the Council and to work together more effectively to ensure 

that the United Nations regains its leadership in protecting and advancing human 

rights and freedom. 

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the new Council is the fact that for the 

first time in many years, a preponderance of states professing a commitment to democracy—and ranked by Freedom House as ‘‘Free’’ in its annual survey of freedom—make up the Council’s membership. Over 75 percent of the Council’s Members 

belong to the Community of Democracies. In addition, the elections process to the 

Council was more transparent and competitive than past Commission processes and 

a number of Members made pledges to abide by and protect human rights. In its 

June inaugural session, the Council took important steps, including the establishment of two working groups to develop the modalities and procedures of the Universal Periodic Review and to review mandates and mechanisms of the Special Procedures. The Council’s current approach for ensuring active participation by nongovernmental organizations in its proceedings should be noted and reinforced. 

The constraints and challenges are also obvious. The lack of more specific criteria 

for membership resulted in almost a dozen countries ranked as Not Free as Members of the Council.1 Three of those countries—Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China—are 

included in the latest ranking of Freedom House’s most repressive regimes, The 

Worst of the Worst, which is being released today. We are concerned that, despite 

the human rights crises that exist in places like North Korea, Darfur, Uzbekistan, 

69

and elsewhere, the Council has only chosen to exercise its authority for country specific action in two special sessions focusing on situations in Gaza and Lebanon, and 

then to pass resolutions widely seen in the human rights community as unbalanced 

condemnations of Israel without reference to human rights violations by Hamas or 

Hizbollah or the states that support them. 

MOVING FORWARD

The Council now needs to prove that it can and will act in a constructive manner 

in furtherance of its mandate. 

The effectiveness of the Council will be judged most importantly on its willingness 

and ability to take action to address country and situation-specific human rights violations. The adoption of country-specific resolutions must remain part of the tools 

to respond to such violations. In the upcoming session in September, the Council 

should focus on those situations in the world where the most serious human rights 

violations now occur. Freedom House has released today our annual compilation of 

The Worst of the Worst, which identifies the most repressive countries in the world 

according to our findings in Freedom in the World, our annual survey of the political 

rights and civil liberties around the world. We believe that these situations represent the minimal ‘‘to do’’ list for priority Council action. These include:

• North Korea, where hundreds of thousands of citizens are held in political 

gulags, while others face torture and arbitrary execution.

• Burma, where the military junta continues to carry out extrajudicial executions, to detain freely elected leaders, and to carry out forced relocation of 

ethnic minorities.

• The Darfur region of western Sudan, home to a humanitarian tragedy of 

major proportions, with over 400,000 deaths and millions of displaced people.

These countries are among the 8 countries (which also include Cuba, Libya, Syria, 

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the territories of Tibet and Chechnya) that receive 

the lowest possible scores in both of our political rights and civil liberties rankings. 

In addition, the Worst of the Worst details situations in Belarus, China, Equatorial 

Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos and Zimbabwe, all of which receive the lowest rating 

on either political rights or civil liberties and should be also be on the priority list 

for Council action. 

UN General Assembly Resolution 60/251 also calls for Members of the Council to 

be removed by a two-thirds vote when ‘‘gross and systematic violations of human 

rights’’ occur. We believe that the situation in a number of Member states, including 

China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia, meet that standard. Currently, however, there are 

no procedures in place for removal of a Member and this should be a priority for 

Council action, and indeed for U.S. government leadership on this issue. This is not 

to say that taking action on this provision will ever be easy, similar provisions in 

current UN human rights treaties have not been utilized to date. 

Finally, we believe that the Council needs to address a worrying global trend that 

directly impacts the human rights situation in many countries. As documented by 

the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, the International Center 

for Not-for-Profit Law, the National Endowment for Democracy and many others, 

a growing number of governments in recent years are enacting legislation and regulations designed to restrict freedom of association, freedom of assembly, access to 

information and freedom of expression, particularly as they relate to democracy advocates and human rights defenders. In addition, many states are using extralegal 

measures such as harassment, intimidation and restrictions on outside funding to 

curb the work of nongovernmental organizations, while non-state actors are increasingly resorting to attacks on persons committed to protecting and defending fundamental freedoms. These activities contradict the Warsaw Declaration of the Community of Democracies, in addition to violating Article 20 of the Universal Declaration 

of Human Rights, Article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political 

Rights and the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. 

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENTS

As was noted previously, the reformed election process for the new Human Rights 

Council led to Community of Democracies (CD) members representing over threequarters of the Council Membership. The current participants of the Community of 

Democracies do contain some aberrations—most notably Venezuela and Russia—but 

this grouping represents a unique gathering of democratic member states. Leading 

CD members have in turn formed a UN Democracy Caucus specifically designed to 

work across regional lines with a common objective of strengthening the ability of 

the United Nations to protect and advance democracy and human rights. Freedom 

70

2For more information, see the analysis of UN Voting Patterns at the 2005 General Assembly 

and Scorecard prepared by the Democracy Coalition project at www.demcoalition.org. 

House has been part of a coalition, along with the Democracy Coalition Project and 

the Transnational Radical Party of Italy and many others, to carry out an international campaign to create and catalyze Caucus action. 

To date, the Caucus has yet to adequately act on opportunities to advance human 

rights at the UN, as one can see from the Democracy Coalition Project’s analysis 

of voting records of democratic countries on country specific resolutions, as well as 

the outcome of the Council elections themselves. 

For example, in the 2005 General Assembly meeting, Mali, the current chair and 

leader of the UN Democracy Caucus, along with other Caucus members, abstained 

from voting in favor of any of the country-specific resolutions, including those directed at some of the worst abusers mentioned above: North Korea, Uzbekistan and 

Turkmenistan and voted to take no action with regard to Sudan.2

With regard to the Council elections in May, the UN Democracy Caucus had 

pledged to give ‘‘serious consideration to countries contributing effectively to the promotion and protection of democracy and human rights worldwide in bodies which 

focus on elements of democratic governance’’ and to favor candidates that have 

‘‘demonstrated a genuine commitment to human rights, both in practice and in their 

pledges.’’ While balloting in the last elections was secret and actual country votes 

are not known, the total vote counts for countries like China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia indicate that many Caucus members did not take their pledges seriously. 

We hope that in the upcoming session this month, the Caucus demonstrates that 

it is willing to work in a consistent and unified manner to ensure the Council seriously addresses human rights violations in an even-handed and proactive fashion. 

THE UNITED STATES: NEED FOR MORE EFFECTIVE ENGAGEMENT

While most of the focus of my testimony has been on the Council and its current 

Members, I want to use the remaining portion of my time to address the role of the 

United States government, which unfortunately is not a Member, having decided 

not to present itself as a candidate for Council membership. We believe this has severely limited the impact and influence of the U.S. government diplomatic efforts. 

I want to start by saying I have the highest respect for the two Administration 

officials that testified here today—they are both enormously talented and are actively working within the Administration to do what they can to facilitate U.S. government engagement with the Council. 

While the Administration may claim that it has been working diligently behind 

the scenes with our allies on human rights issues related to the Council, it has 

clearly missed important opportunities. It is not worth rehashing errors in U.S. 

strategy and tactics during Council negotiations, as they have already been well documented. But since the Council’s establishment, the U.S. continues to demonstrate 

that engagement is not a high priority for this Administration. The U.S. was one 

of the only countries in the world that did not send a foreign minister or deputy 

foreign minister to speak at the Council’s opening high-level session. The U.S. was 

weeks behind other countries in submitting a written statement on the important 

Universal Peer Review process that is being put in place in Geneva—a process 

which will be critical for any future Council elections. And despite the recommendation of Freedom House and many other human rights NGOs, the Administration declined to create a high-level special envoy for the Council, who could work outside—

but reinforce—the able efforts of Warren Tichenor, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN 

in Geneva—and have the status and explicit authority to deal directly with foreign 

ministries in state capitals. 

We all recognize that the U.S. government has a serious international image problem. If the U.S. is to be persuasive and effective with the Council, the Administration needs to communicate clearly that the Council is a priority, and design and implement a worldwide strategy, not just work through New York or Geneva representatives. This is not time for business as usual—there is too much at stake. The 

U.S. has some of the most talented diplomats in the world, and is the world’s only 

remaining superpower, why are we continuing to fail to persuasively engage the 

international community in promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms? 

Finally, as today’s hearing reinforces, the U.S. Congress also has an important 

role to play in bringing world attention to critical human rights issues and helping 

to advance the objective of an effective Human Rights Council. That role should not 

include conditioning funding to the United Nations on the Council’s performance. 

Rather, our energies should be devoted to encouraging a more effective—not necessarily a more bellicose—diplomacy from the United States government, and to 

71

raise directly with other democratically elected governments—many of whom request meetings with Members of Congress—the importance of their ensuring the 

Council take effective action against country specific human rights violations. 

FREEDOM HOUSE ROLE

For its part, Freedom House will continue to engage in the work of the Council, 

particularly in facilitating access of human rights defenders and democracy activists 

to that body, in order to directly provide information on situations where infringements and violations of internationally recognized freedoms are occurring. For instance, we will be present in Geneva during the forthcoming session of the Council 

and will hold a parallel event on attacks against freedom of association. 

It is important to remember that the Council was created to replace the Commission on Human Rights because the UN Secretary General and many others recognized the previous body’s inability to address the most fundamental human rights 

issues confronting the world. The success of the new Human Rights Council is critical not only for the advancement and protection of human rights, but for the overall 

credibility and effectiveness of the UN as a body. 

We appreciate the opportunity to testify here today, and we will continue to work 

with others to raise issues and concerns directly with the U.S. government, and 

with democratically elected Members of the Council to ensure that the Council’s actions restore—and indeed strengthen—the role of the United Nations in protecting 

human rights around the world. 

2 Freedom House would have liked to have seen more specific criteria for membership in the establishing resolution which currently calls for Members elected to 

the Council to ‘‘uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of 

human rights.’’ We hope that a future election process would be based on a credible 

universal periodic review of all new candidates which would examine a country’s 

performance against specified criteria and publish the results prior to the next electoral process. Such criteria should include:

• A government consistently demonstrating its respect for fundamental freedoms of its own citizens, which would include freedom from torture, due process, freedoms of association, information, religion, and right choose its own 

leaders.

• Cooperation with UN human rights bodies, including whether a government 

has denied entry to special rapporteurs or independent experts, and whether 

it has taken constructive and significant steps to remedy violations noted in 

past or current resolutions.

• An analysis of follow-through on specific pledges and democracy made during 

the May elections.

• A country’s voting record been on human rights issues in the General Assembly and, where applicable, as a member of the Council. An analysis of voting 

records on the top ten or fifteen human rights issues, as undertaken by Democracy Coalition Project, could be seen as a credible indicator of their interest in promoting human rights.

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Windsor, thank you very much for your testimony and the work of Freedom House. 

Dr. Halperin. 

STATEMENT OF MORTON H. HALPERIN, PH.D., EXECUTIVE 

DIRECTOR, OPEN SOCIETY POLICY CENTER 

Mr. HALPERIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I very much appreciate the opportunity to appear before this 

Subcommittee, and I want to commend you for holding the hearings, and I am heartened by the fact that there seems to be a consensus among all of those who have testified to the three points 

which I began my written statement with, and which I would ask 

be made part of the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection. 

Mr. HALPERIN. And that is, first, that the UN Human Rights 

Council can play an important role as do other parts of the UN in 

72

protecting those struggling for their human rights around the 

globe. 

Second, that the early returns from the Council are at best 

mixed, and that, in particular, there must be deep concern about 

the actions against Israel, which have been widely discussed. 

But that third, that it is far too soon to give up on the Council. 

The Council can get better and that requires American leadership, 

and I think despite the efforts that have been described we need 

more effective American leadership, and I want to come to that at 

the end of my testimony. 

I do want to note now that the Open Society Policy Center joins 

the other witnesses and the Members of the Committee in condemning the one-sided attack on Israel and the failure of the Council to condemn the clear human rights violations by Hamas and 

Hezbollah. Also, I think one needs to express concern about the fact 

that special sessions were called on the Middle East, but not on 

Darfur when I think it is clear that the human rights situation in 

Darfur is deteriorating and is an urgent emergency situation. 

If the United States were on the Council, I would say it should 

call for a special session and try to get a third of the members. We 

can do that anyway as a nonmember, and I would hope that we 

would do that because it seems to me if there ever is a need for 

a special session, it is for what is happening now in Darfur. 

But I think as we think about the Council we need to remind 

ourselves about the important work that has been done and that 

has been mentioned by all the other witnesses, the special sessions, 

the special rapporteurs, the drafting of human rights standards 

which play an important role in affecting other governments, and 

the fact that the Council, as the Commission before it, is more open 

to NGO participation than any other part of the UN and sets a 

standard that I think we should seek to emulate in other parts of 

the UN system. 

I think we need to recognize that the first session was primarily 

procedural, and therefore it is far too soon to say that the Universal Review, for example, cannot be effective. 

As has been said, the major reason to try to change from the 

Commission to the Council was the fact that many members had 

been elected to the Commission who should not serve on it, but I 

think as also been noted there has been substantial progress. There 

is a very different election procedure and the Council is better than 

the Commission. 

The only country I want to comment on that was elected is 

China. I share the concern about the election of China, and the 

view that China should not sit on the Council, and I am pleased 

to see that the Members of the Subcommittee seem to share that 

view. But I wonder whether you would also agree that nobody who 

has advocated the motion that China is entitled to a seat on the 

Council should be representing the United States at the UN. That 

is, I think, a matter of deep concern. 

Let me turn finally to the question of what the United States 

should do in moving ahead. First, I think that we should appoint 

a special envoy. A number of NGOs have joined in proposing to the 

Secretary of State that she appoint a special envoy, not only to represent the United States at the actual Council sessions, but in beVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:16 Nov 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\090606\29835.000 DOUG PsN: DOUG
73

tween those sessions to visit the other members of the Council and 

to work to make it a better body. 

We have not done that. It meant that we have been underrepresented in Geneva. We have been represented by an Ambassador 

even when other countries send their ministers to the opening session, and I think one way to clearly signal our determination to try 

to make the Council work is to appoint a special envoy. 

Second, I think we need to do much more to invigorate the democracy caucus at the Council. Mali has not called a meeting in 

Geneva. I think we should be pressing them to do so. 

As I have said, we should be seeking an early special session on 

Darfur but also seeking resolutions at the Council on countries 

such as North Korea and Sudan, which have currently engaged in 

extensive human rights violations. 

Finally, it seems to me not too soon for the United States to announce that it will seek a seat on the Council at the next election, 

and also to begin working to get more democratic countries to seek 

seats on the Council. The way to defeat Cuba, as Venezuela and 

Iran were defeated, Saudi Arabia and others, is to get democratic 

countries from each region to seek the seats and to actively campaign on their behalf, and the election is not for awhile, but it is 

not too soon for us to begin that process. 

Mr. Chairman, let me thank you again for the opportunity to appear, and of course I am prepared to answer any questions you 

may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Halperin follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MORTON H. HALPERIN, PH.D., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OPEN

SOCIETY POLICY CENTER

Mr. Chairman, 

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the sub-committee to present the 

views of the Open Society Policy Center on the new UN Human Rights Council and 

to suggest steps that the United States should take to improve the functioning of 

the Council. I want to make three basic points: 

1. The UN Human Rights mechanisms including the new Council (and before that 

the Commission) play an important role in promoting human rights standards and 

in protecting those subject to human rights abuses around the globe. 

2. The early actions of the new Council have sent a mixed signal, but some actions 

including especially the two special sessions on the Middle East must be a cause 

for great concern among all who care about even-handed and objective action in support of human rights. 

3. It is far too soon to give up on the Council. American leadership is essential 

to the effective functioning of the Council, but the United States government has 

thus far abdicated its essential leadership of this effort. 

Let me start with the second point. I will be very brief since the problem will, 

I am sure, be described at length by others testifying today. However, I want to 

leave no doubt that the Open Society Policy Center joins many other organizations 

including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, in condemning the decision of the Council to focus recent resolutions in Special Sessions exclusively on 

Israel and to ignore the flagrant human rights abuses by Hamas and Hezballah 

which provoked the latest Middle East crisis. Special sessions are merited in a variety of circumstances, but particularly when a human rights situation significantly 

and rapidly deteriorates—with the immediate aim of containing the situation and 

preventing further abuses from taking place. Unfortunately, the resolutions that resulted from the July 5th and August 11th special sessions were widely considered 

to be unbalanced as they failed to address the responsibility of such actors as 

Hezbollah and Hamas in committing human rights abuses. 

Further, the Council was unbalanced in its failure to call Special Sessions on 

other situations—we believe that events in Darfur meet the criteria for a Special 

Session and the Council should urgently take up this issue. The fact that a special 

session was not called for in the case of Darfur raises important concerns about the 

74

ability of the Council to be even-handed in its decision to take action. The Commission was rightly condemned for its politicization, including its failure to condemn 

all human rights abuses in the Middle East, and the actions of the Council show 

that there is still a great deal to be done. 

However, we need to keep in mind the indispensable role that the Commission 

played, and that the Council must play, in protecting those struggling for human 

rights everywhere in the world. The Council provides a forum in which human 

rights abuses in places such as Burma, Cuba, and Darfur can be highlighted and 

condemned. The special rapporteurs, both those for particular countries and those 

with functional responsibilities, play a key role by visiting countries engaged in 

human rights abuses and pressing for reforms. Other experts help draft human 

rights standards, which when approved by the Council or the General Assembly 

play an important role in motivating governments to improve their conduct. The 

Council also is more open than any other UN institution to the participation of civil 

society organizations and provides a forum for NGOs to influence the activities of 

the United Nations. 

The debate over the creation of a new Council served to remind all of us of these 

important functions. One task ahead is to be sure that the new Council preserves 

and builds on these important achievements of the Commission. If we are to succeed 

in this effort and prevent further politicalization of the Council, the United States 

must be deeply engaged. Regrettably it has not been. 

The effort to create a new Human Rights Council stemmed in part from the election to the Commission of countries which were themselves significant violators of 

human rights. While the effort to draft new rules for the Council, and the first election to the Council, failed to completely solve this problem far greater progress was 

achieved than is generally understood. 

The members of the Commission were elected by consensus by the Economic and 

Social Council—a subsidiary body of the GA—based on the recommendations of regional groups which proposed only as many candidates as they were entitled to 

elect. There were no agreed criteria for selection and many human rights abusers 

were routinely nominated and elected. 

Although the human rights community did not get all the reforms that it wanted, 

the new rules are dramatically different. Members of the Council are elected by the 

General Assembly and each member must be elected directly and individually by 

secret ballot and must receive an absolute majority of the member states of the GA. 

States are advised to take account of the human rights record of those seeking election to the Council in deciding which states to vote for. The new procedures provide 

an opportunity to improve membership by discouraging and defeating poor candidates and encouraging states with good human rights record to participate in 

these competitive elections. 

On May 9th, 2005 the General Assembly, using these new procedures, elected the 

47 members of the new Council. Although a handful of states with poor human 

rights records, including two permanent members of the Security Council, were 

elected to the Human Rights Council—Russia, China, Pakistan, Cuba and Saudi 

Arabia—most of the world’s worst abusers no longer serve on the body and overall 

membership is a significant improvement over the past Commissions. 

In a dramatic break from the past, sixty-four candidates competed for the 47 

seats. From every region but Africa, more countries stood for election than could be 

chosen, insuring a competitive election. No deadline was given, yet all candidates 

announced early and campaigned actively for seats. Each candidate submitted a 

pledge that outlined the country’s qualifications for membership, and its platform 

for action as a Council member. 

Out of the 47 members elected, 37 are members of the Community of Democracies. This is a far higher percentage than was ever elected to the Commission and 

represents an opportunity for democratic member states to work within the Democracy Caucus across regional lines to ensure a stronger and more effective Council. 

The election results demonstrated that Member States voted for many candidates 

based on their merit, as instructed by the resolution that established the Council. 

Thus, Iran and Venezuela, countries with troubling human rights records, were unsuccessful in their efforts to be elected to the Council. The African bloc, which was 

the only one to nominate a slate, used that process to keep four human rights abusers who had previously served on the Commission—Zimbabwe, Sudan, Libya and 

Egypt—from seeking a seat on the Council. Similarly, former Commission members 

Syria and Viet Nam did not run for Asian seats. 

We can and must do better in future elections, but we must not allow the election 

of a few countries which do not deserve to be on the Council to blind us to the substantial progress that has been made. 

Let me turn finally to the question of what the United States should do. 

75

Regrettably the actions of the American government since the recess appointment 

of John Bolton as the US Permanent Representative to the UN have been ineffective 

and counter-productive. 

Great progress toward building consensus on creating an effective Human Rights 

Council had been made in the months leading up to the World Summit in September 2005. Among other reforms in the draft text was a provision requiring states 

to receive an affirmative vote of 2/3 of the members of the General Assembly to be 

elected to the Council. 

When he arrived at the UN with a recess appointment, Ambassador Bolton denounced the negotiating process that had produced this document and proposed 750 

last-minute edits to the document, opening Pandora’s box. Ambassador Bolton’s proposed edits to the document and the negotiations which followed led to a much less 

specific endorsement of the Human Rights Council, omitting the 2/3 provision and 

other reforms. 

When negotiations resumed on the Council, Ambassador Bolton rejected the negotiating process agreed to by all other states and held himself aloof attending only 

one of over thirty plenary sessions to negotiate the Council. Moreover, the United 

States never presented a draft resolution that it was prepared to support and left 

other nations in the dark about what our real position was. When the rest of the 

membership reached agreement on a text which incorporated many advances, the 

United States demonstrated how much it had lost leadership on this issue by voting 

no along with only three other states. The United States decision not to seek membership on the Council during the first year has further reduced our influence. 

Despite calls from international human rights organizations including the American Jewish Committee, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International USA, the 

Carter Center for Human Rights, Freedom House, Global Rights and Human Rights 

First, the United States failed to appoint a Special Envoy to the Council to advance 

U.S. policy objectives during this critical year. This has directly undermined U.S. 

influence. For example, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN in Geneva delivered an address at the historic inaugural session of the UN Human Rights Council. However, 

because the U.S. representative was only at Ambassadorial level, this address was 

delivered at a general session, not the high-level session where over 80 high or ministerial level representatives spoke. The absence of the United States from the highlevel session was a glaring omission, and sent a damaging signal to the Council 

about U.S. priorities and commitment to strengthen the Council, notwithstanding 

the constructive engagement of the U.S. mission in Geneva at the working level in 

the activities of the Council. 

On March 15, Ambassador Bolton, speaking on instructions from the State Department, told the General Assembly that the United States was committed to 

working, ‘‘cooperatively with other Member States to make the Council as strong 

and effective as it can be. We will be supportive of efforts to strengthen the Council 

and look forward to a serious review of the Council’s structure and work.’’ It is time 

to put that commitment into practice. To do that the United States should:

• Appoint a Special Envoy to represent the United States at Council sessions 

and in dealing with other member states on human rights issues. A Special 

Envoy would send an unequivocal message that the United States will continue to work actively to uphold universal human rights standards. The Special Envoy should have the diplomatic experience and credibility to work cooperatively and effectively with other democratic states to promote U.S. interests and strategically isolate spoiler states.

• Work with the government of Mali, the current chair of the democracy caucus 

at the UN, to activate the caucus as a means of developing a consensus of 

democratic states in dealing with issues before the Council. We should use 

meetings of the caucus to educate democratic states from the developing 

world about the importance of an even handed approach to the Middle East

• Seek early support in the Council for resolutions dealing with urgent human 

rights problems in countries such as North Korea, Burma, and Sudan regarding the Darfur region.

• Announce now that we intend to seek a seat on the Human Rights Council 

at the next election in the spring and urge other democratic states to also 

seek election.

Congress should support these efforts and should not condition funding to the 

Human Rights Council or the UN. Other large donor nations are committed to engaging and strengthening the Council during its inaugural years and we would only 

be isolated in such an effort as we were when we threatened to without funding over 

the question of UN reforms. 

76

Ensuring that this new body is effective and fair in advancing human rights requires a U.S. engagement that is more than business as usual—on par with the 

commitment made by the United States to establish the Commission. Today, we face 

similar challenges, including genocide, and the new Council faces heightened expectations to accomplish growing responsibilities. The resolution to create the new 

Council took steps toward outlining the body’s responsibilities, but critical decisions 

regarding how the body will review its members, address pressing human rights situations, the extent to which NGOs are allowed to engage and which mandates and 

procedures will be maintained, will be determined during the Council’s inaugural 

years. The range and scope of issues to be addressed and the challenges posed by 

those that would seek to undermine human rights require a sophisticated and dedicated effort beyond the ordinary. The stakes for those on the front line of human 

rights struggles around the world is far too great for us to concede defeat at this 

early stage. 

Mr. Chairman, allow me once again to thank you and the sub-committee and to 

express my willingness to answer any questions you may have.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Dr. Halperin. 

You raised the subject of someone in the U.S. Mission recommending China to the Human Rights Council. Who was that? 

Mr. HALPERIN. That was Ambassador Bolton who in an interview 

with the Washington Post stated his belief that all of the permanent members of the Security Council were entitled to seats on the 

Human Rights Council, and indeed he said on all other UN bodies, 

and a number of Ambassadors have commented that our effort to 

keep off serious human rights abuses was seriously undercut by 

that statement by Ambassador Bolton. 

I would be glad to provide that article for the record. 

Mr. SMITH. I will get the cite as soon as I go back to my office, 

but I thank you for raising that because I for one would agree with 

you wholeheartedly that it is all about performance indeed, not 

paper promises. 

And Mr. Schaefer, I read the comment or the statement of the 

Chinese, their pledge, which brokers nothing. I mean, they say 

those kinds of things every time you meet with anyone in Beijing 

or any of their representatives here, including their Ambassador. 

The 300 policies enacted by the People’s Republic of China’s Congress when you get down to it are not worth the paper they are 

printed on because there is no transparency, there is nothing to it, 

unfortunately. 

So thank you all. I want to thank all of you for your testimonies. 

I mean, they were very, very powerful. This is the first in a series 

of hearings. In a few months, probably late November, early December, we will hold another hearing to take another look at how 

well or poorly the Human Rights Council is doing, and hopefully 

that will continue right into next year because I would agree with 

all of you that we need to make this work, and so far disfunction, 

regrettably, is what we are seeing, and not something that victims 

and their advocates could be truly happy about. 

Let me just ask a very brief question about the review. One of 

our witnesses, I think, made a very good point that violators should 

be first in line for that review. Would all of you agree with that—

that China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia should be first in the dock, if 

you will? 

Ms. WINDSOR. The issue is one of tactics. There is obviously an 

argument for that, and as I said, those countries, I think, need to 

be subject to a review as fast as possible, but there is also an argument that can be made that some of the countries that are good 

77

performers can set the standard for others by volunteering to go 

first so that this mechanism actually works as opposed to have it 

undermined right from the beginning. 

So I would say that it would be useful to also have perhaps countries that you wouldn’t cite, like the Czech Republic, volunteering 

to go first, and then comparing how they do their review and how 

they handle it with a country like Cuba and China and how they 

handle their own review. 

Mr. HALPERIN. Let me. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. HALPERIN. I think we have to pick our fights and figure out 

what is most sensible here. I am not sure that we are not better 

off waiting to set a standard by the first year or 2 of review, and 

have China come up later after we have refined the process and to 

then subject them to it in a way that we can say was set by the 

standards of other countries. 

It would not be crazy to say that the countries that only have a 

1-year term need to be reviewed first because they are only going 

to be on the Council for a year, and I don’t think we can say in 

advance the bad countries should go first because the purpose of 

the review presumably is to find out what the human rights 

records are of each country. We think we know the answer to that, 

but I think that making the process work effectively may be more 

important than trying to get all the countries that we think should 

be first to go first. 

Mr. NEUER. I think, Mr. Chairman, that in principle, having 

human rights violators go under review first makes sense. The 

problem in practice is that you and I may agree on who those violators are. At the UN, regrettably, the view is quite different. Unfortunately, when I am in Geneva when the United States is criticized, the whole room will clap. This is a concern. So it would be 

difficult to get the UN to agree on who those first abusers would 

be, and I think Jennifer made a good point that we need to 

strengthen the mechanism. For UN Watch, one of the greatest concerns is that we will have some sort of universal review, but as I 

said, it will be a questionnaire and as some other UN review mechanisms are, it will be toothless. 

So as much as possible, I think, democracies need to devote attention to making this a mechanism that counts, and if it is by 

having some democracies go first and set a precedent for a real rigorous review, that might be a good idea. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Mr. Chairman, that was actually my suggestion. 

I really do think that that will be a good test to find out how determined the Council is going to be in pursuing this process. As we 

have seen in the United Nations many, many times, and not just 

in the human rights issues, but in other areas, the tendency is to 

try and dilute the process, water it down, become the lowest common denominator, and I expect this process to be subject to that 

same pressure. 

Why waste time trying to hold the Czech Republic up when there 

are already extensive reports out there, extensive evidence, extensive documentation on the practices of a number of human rights 

abusers out there? And I think that it should be up to countries 

that have exemplary records to suggest who should go first, and 

78

this will quickly decide and determine and illustrate how seriously 

the Council will take this issue. 

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate that. 

I would just note that one of the aspects of Manfred Nowak’s report that struck me in addition to just his description of what was 

actually happening and the types of torture individuals are experiencing, was the noticeable fear that he detected with virtually or 

almost everyone he met. They did not want to tell their story because of fear of reprisals. And it seems to me for those who are in 

the Lao Gae today, whether they being Falangang or any other religious or political group, and are experiencing the ravages of torture, the sooner the calvary arrives that say wait a minute, this is 

totally uncivilized, unacceptable behavior, might have an ameliorating effect on what those torturers do. 

So I would tend to agree with Mr. Schaefer. I understand and I 

think your points are very well taken, the other panelists. I would 

also point out that one of the things that Jae Jang Chang said 

here, I first met him in China when the Chinese Government was 

seeing to get Olympics 2000. He was let out briefly, then re-arrested before he was sent out of the country for humanitarian purposes, he was dying as a result of the beatings and mistreatment. 

He said it is counterintuitive but it was his experience in the Lao 

Gae, and he experienced incredible tortures, that when we were 

tough—we being the United States and the international community—and really spoke boldly truth to power in Beijing, the tortures eased up. 

It wasn’t that they retaliated. You know, you would think just 

the opposite, but he said it was such that when we broke bread 

with them and, you know, exchanged pleasantries the tortures became much more emboldened to do worse things. 

So I think all your points are well taken. I think by and large 

I would hope that China would lead the queue in terms of analysis. 

That is just my view. 

Let me ask you with regard to the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. What will be the panelist’s view on whether or not that needs to be done away with, and 

your view on it? 

Mr. NEUER. I would like to say something. I have just come from 

the latest Sub-Commission session and I have had the unfortunate 

experience of attending several Sub-Commission sessions, and I 

don’t recommend it to someone who cares about human rights. 

You know, last week, and in the past few weeks, we have seen 

Saddam Hussein on trial for the genocidal gassing of Kurds in 

Halabaja. Well, those who know Sub-Commission history will know 

that in the 1980s, when someone tried to condemn Saddam for 

these crimes around the time they were happening, two members, 

Halima Warzazi of Morocco, and Alfonzo Martinez of Cuba, and 

others put forward a no action motion to kill an attempt to stop 

Saddam. They shielded Saddam as he was gassing the Kurds of 

Halabaja. 

Those two members sit on the Sub-Commission today and they 

have been there for decades. Those are the types of people—not all, 

we have excellent American members and some others—but unfortunately these agents of oppressive regimes dominate the SubVerDate Mar 21 2002 10:16 Nov 14, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00082 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGI\090606\29835.000 DOUG PsN: DOUG
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Commission, and it has been an agent for many misdeeds. Halima 

Warzazi, 2 years ago, began a session by comparing Israelis to 

Nazis, and this is sort of typical of what the Sub-Commission does. 

The Sub-Commission that I have seen, unfortunately, has failed 

its mandate to protect human rights, and does not deserve to last 

any longer. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. I have nothing to add to that. 

Mr. SMITH. In terms of definitions, if you could give your views 

on if you believe, each one of you, and if you could answer this, as 

to what the Human Rights Council construes to be human rights? 

Should it be treaties freely entered into and ratified by states, or 

should it be statements made at conferences which very often were 

undemocratic, at least in my view in many case? How do we define 

human rights? Dr. Halperin? 

Mr. HALPERIN. Well, first of all, Mr. Chairman, as you are aware 

there is a treaty on economic and social rights as well as on political and civil rights. So those of us who think that political and 

civil rights deserve a special place in the patheum as OSI does, 

nevertheless can’t win that argument by saying just focus on treaty 

rights, because we have the second treaty as well. 

But I do want to say there is another body of rights that I think 

is very important, and that is as I mentioned in my testimony, the 

standards that have come out of the work of special rapporteurs of 

the Human Rights Commission and now hopefully the Council, 

which are then in some cases endorsed by the General Assembly, 

and in some cases endorsed by the Human Rights Commission. 

Those play an important role in the internal debates in countries 

about their obligations to deal with human rights problems, and 

while they are not treaties, they are developed through an expert 

process, and I think play an important role. 

In the same way, I would say the Warsaw Declaration, which 

created the community of democracies and committed its members 

to join the democracy caucus, is a useful document. 

So while I agree that treaties should get the highest attention, 

it doesn’t help us particularly with the conflict between political 

and civil rights, and we need to recognize that there are other 

kinds of resolutions that play a very important role in the struggles 

that people have in individual countries to get their rights, and we 

should not derogate them in a way that makes it harder for them 

to use those documents. 

Ms. WINDSOR. Well, Freedom House is quite clear about what we 

think should be the focus in terms of fundamental freedoms. We 

focus on political rights and civil liberties, and we believe that that 

should be the Council’s focus. 

In terms of other bodies, I think that the issue again is one of 

focus and dilution, and it has been a strategy that has been implemented in many, many bodies around the world to try to dilute and 

add other important issues that are important for development for 

humanitarian reasons, in a way to sort of step back from that. 

And I want to include another important right that I think is implicit in a lot of the treaties and particularly in the human rights 

defender treaty, which is the right of freedom of association and 

the right to assist those who are actively trying to exercise their 

freedom of association in their own country. Again, I think it is 

80

very important that we move from beyond the right to protect to 

the right to assist those people that are actually struggling for fundamental human rights, civil and political rights in their countries, 

and we need to assert that much more forcefully. 

Mr. NEUER. Mr. Chairman, I think it was mentioned before by 

Dr. Lagon that regrettably too often the reference to economic and 

social rights is used as a pretext to divert attention from failures 

to respect basic and civil and political rights, and this is a trend 

that we see. 

One tends to see economic and social rights cited not by governments that wish to be held accountable themselves, but it is a 

question of what is owing to the government, and when we speak 

about human rights, whether it is civil or political rights, or even 

at the UN of economic and social rights, the question always ought 

to be what is owing to the individual. Too often the governments 

invoke economic and social rights not as whether they will give 

food and water to their own people, but rather what others, whether it is the West or the international community owe, and again 

as a diversion to their own failures to respect basic democratic 

rights. It is something that we see and we ought to be mindful of 

and combat. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. A lot of what I was going to say has already been 

said, especially the issue about the diversionary tactic of using the 

economic, social and cultural issues to try and divert attention 

away from the political and civil issues. 

I certainly agree with the Chairman’s opening statement wherein 

states sign treaties, they implement treaties, and they adopt treaties by the processes of their governments in the way that they 

have agreed to be done, and those nations should be held accountable for their own decisions to adopt those obligations. 

But the effort that seems to be going on in any cases is to try 

and elevate norms or standards that have not necessarily been 

agreed to, and are developed in a very ill-defined and ambiguous 

fashion that evolves over time, and I think that it is very concerning that this process is going on, and that the United States 

in particular, as the nation that I live in and the nation that I live 

under as far as its laws are concerned, has to be aware of and to 

be concerned about. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you a question. In my opening, I mentioned the issue of abortion, which is obviously very divisive. It is 

one that reasonable people can be found on both sides of the issue, 

at least I believe that, but it is also one that I think respect for 

the unborn is an idea whose time is coming. It hasn’t come yet, but 

like Victor Hugo said nothing is more compelling as an idea whose 

time has come, and it is because of modern science, ultrasounds, 

diagnostic techniques, and prenatal surgery, which is doing incredibly useful things on behalf of unborn children that in the past—

I chaired the Spina Bifida Caucus in the House, and prenatal surgery now is causing many of those kids who would have less of a 

quality of life to have a tremendous life ahead of them because of 

the surgery done while they were still in utero. 

What got me personally into the human rights issues 30 years 

ago was the right to life issue, and all of the rest is built upon that. 

81

If you have a right to life, and all the other religion naturally flow 

from that. 

My question is what do you think the position should be of the 

Human Rights Council? I contend and others can disagree that 

many of the very important treaty bodies have misused their mandates to browbeat and cower countries who do listen to the UN 

much more than the United States perhaps might to look at their 

laws as they relate to respecting life and to reverse? 

I believe that abortion is violence against children. Some of you 

may disagree. I don’t know that. But I do believe that the very 

methods of abortion, chemical poisoning and dismemberment are 

acts of violence. There is no way to call it benign or compassionate 

for the child when that is occurring, and I do believe we do need 

to protect both mother and child, and to provide protections, pregnancy care centers and the like. 

Having said that, the Human Rights Council, I think, could become very much more controversial and its work undermined if it 

were to embrace abortion as an additional mandate. Right now it 

is all this—the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, I have read many of their reports, and 

I have also read their documents, their treaties as well as the protocol. Nowhere does it even remotely suggest that abortion is a 

right, and yet by usage on the part of some of the experts they try 

to suggest that that is the case. 

I think this would hurt and undercut the Human Rights Council’s work. I would be interested in knowing what you think. Who 

would like to go first? Dr. Halperin? 

Mr. HALPERIN. It is not something that I have thought about so 

I think I should pass on that now. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Windsor. 

Ms. WINDSOR. I can just attest since I actually attended the 1996 

Cairo conference that if they took on this issue it would in fact stop 

action on all other issues. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay, I will conclude on that remark. I was at Cairo 

as well, and one of the provisions in Cairo was that it is up to the 

Federal Governments to decide that. 

I would also just finally point out that Martin Luther King’s 

niece, Alveda King, has had two abortions, and now is a passionate 

defender of the unborn child. She makes the point, she is a part 

of a group called Silent No More, that there are two victims in 

every abortion, both the mother and the baby, and we need to recognize the longer term deleterious effects to women, particularly 

psychologically and emotionally. I appreciate your comments. 

Let me just conclude by asking any of you if there is any other 

recommendations that you might make. Your testimonies were outstanding for the Congress because, again, this is part of an ongoing 

review and many Members are concerned about this. Any final 

comment? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Yes. I would just like to add because this subject 

has come up in the testimonies before about the decision for the 

United States to run for a seat on the Council and the prospect of 

doing that in the future. 

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The recent votes in the special session and in the recent session 

in June reveal that just simply having the United States on the 

Council is not going to affect the outcome of the various votes. The 

U.S. can’t do it alone. The Council’s future depends on the determination of the member states on the Council to act in concert to 

do the right thing, in essence. 

The U.S. decision not to run places the onus specifically on the 

other member states to do something. It is all too often in the 

United Nations system that you have the United States set up as 

one party, and then everybody else set up as the other party, and 

even when states are like-minded and agree with the United States 

on an issue, all too often that support disappears or evaporates 

when push comes to shove and the votes are taken. 

In this process, it is too important for the other member states 

to really step forward and act to support the various positions in 

this Council in order for it to be effective. And so we need to know, 

the United States needs to know whether the other Council members are willing to step up and take this burden and accept the responsibility for what is going on to make the Council more effective 

than its predecessor. 

By running for a seat without knowing this, the U.S. unduly 

lends credibility to the Council when in fact it may not deserve 

that credibility. The U.S. can participate in the process through either making statements, making pronouncements or working 

through other like-minded states on the Council, and this process 

right now I think is very malleable. We need to make sure that the 

Council evolves in a way that is going to be productive, and by prematurely announcing that the U.S. is going to run for a seat you 

are removing a lot of pressure for that outcome. 

Mr. NEUER. Mr. Chairman, in the reports released today by UN 

Watch there are several recommendations and I will just mention 

a few. One of them is to take action against human rights violators. 

As I mentioned in my testimony, not a single member state had declared its intention to introduce any resolution on any specific violation. The only standing commitment to do so, of course, is the political resolutions targeting Israel. 

So we encourage democracies to announce now that they will 

take specific action, whether it is against Burma or North Korea 

in defense of human rights victims there, country-specific resolutions and where appropriate, special sessions. That is number one. 

Number two, protect democratic values. I mentioned we have a 

democratic alliance of only 11 of 47 states that can be relied upon 

to stand up for democratic values and vote the right way, the way 

democracies ought to. We need to expand that group. We don’t 

have a magic answer for that, but, to begin with, these 11 democratic countries need to reach out to the South American countries 

who are not voting like democracies, and leading NGOs to play, to 

cite those countries that are voting with the Cubas and the Chinas 

and the Saudi Arabias, and we need to help them overcome political pressure, to chose the side of democracy. 

Just two others. Many democratic countries have come to the defense of NGOs. We need to continue to do that. And in the preliminary session in May or June, the Syrian representative said NGOs 

need to be ‘‘strictly monitored,’’ and we did not get a response from 

83

any democratic country in the plenary to say NGOs need to have 

their participation strengthened. So democratic countries need to 

continue and increase standing up for NGOs. 

Finally, regarding the one-sided obsession with Israel, I note that 

three leading NGOs—Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch 

and Reporters Sans Frontie`res—last month took important stands 

against the actions that they said were highly politicized, onesided, and exploit human rights for political ends. We salute those 

NGOs for taking those stands and encourage them, they are extremely influential, to continue to tell the truth and to try to save 

the Council from the abuses. 

One part of this which has not been mentioned yet today is the 

regional group segregation. When the Council began, before there 

was any resolution or any statement whatsoever, Israel was the 

only country, as it was in the Commission, excluded from any of 

the five regional groups. The regional groups are vital for participation. This segregation has to end. Kofi Annan has called it an 

anomaly, but we haven’t seen action in Geneva. And so we call on 

Secretary-General Kofi Annan to ask the High Commissioner, Louise Arbour, to lead the effort in Geneva, publicly and privately, to 

end this denial of basic equality at the Council. And we note that 

the Western group at the General Assembly in New York does include Israel since the year 2000, and logically it should do so at the 

Council, which is, of course, a GA subsidiary body. 

Ms. WINDSOR. Thank you. Just first of all, I would say I really 

think that the Universal Periodic Review needs to publish its findings. Whatever kind of mechanism it comes up to actually publish 

what the findings are I think will have a very, very important role 

to play. 

Two, utilization of procedures, I urge the Council to utilize its 

procedures for removal of its members. I want to say that all seven 

major human rights treaties have such procedures currently, and 

they have never in fact been utilized in a state-to-state mechanism. 

I also would mention that the U.S. Government also has such a 

provision for citing countries as gross and systematic human rights 

abusers under section 502[b] and 116, and it has never been utilized. So we need to follow up, I think, on those procedures. 

On the last issue related to my colleague’s comments on engagement, we did a study of U.S. leadership at the United Nations 

along with the Council on Foreign Relations in 2002, and your colleague Representative David Drier co-chaired that Council with 

then-retired Representative Lee Hamilton. 

We had everybody from all sides of the table on the United Nations, and what they all agreed on is that the United Nations is 

a political body—perhaps the best analogy is the U.S. Congress. 

What I would ask you is if you wanted your fellow members to take 

action, would you just wait and see if they do the wrong thing, or 

would you try to persuade them? 

Mr. HALPERIN. I want to underscore that point, Mr. Chairman. 

I agree with my former boss, Secretary Albright, that the United 

States is the indispensable nation. It is fine to say we use this as 

a test of whether the European Union or the Latin American democracies will step up to the plate, but we do that at the expense 

of the people around the world struggling to protect their human 

84

rights, and to expand their freedoms and democracy, and I don’t 

think that that is an appropriate tradeoff to make. 

The UN Human Rights Council will be more effective if we are 

there, if we are embarrassing people by standing up when Syria 

says NGOs should be controlled. If nobody else will do it, we should 

do it, and if nobody will call a special session on Darfur, we should 

call it. And if nobody will lead the struggle to say that Chinese 

human rights violations should be condemned, we should lead that 

struggle, and we can’t effectively lead it unless we are on the Council. 

If the Council fails, there will be plenty of people to say that and 

plenty of opportunity for recriminations, but we should be the 

human rights leader of the world. We are the human rights leader 

of the world. And when we say we are stepping back to see whether it works, that unfortunately doesn’t encourage others to take the 

lead. It encourages others to say, well, if the U.S. doesn’t consider 

this an important venue, then why should we stick our neck out 

and get attacked? 

So I think that it was a mistake for us not to run the first time. 

We ought to run now, and we ought to play a leadership role and 

not let the Council get away with the kinds of things that it has 

gotten away with in the first session because we were not there. 

I would also say I would urge you to work with your colleagues 

to continue to supply support to the Council. Threatening to cut off 

the funds or cutting off the funds would only backfire and make it 

impossible for the U.S. to exercise its leadership, and I think we 

always have to remember that what is involved here is the people 

struggling for human rights around the world, the Chinese, the Cubans, people in Darfur and others, and that is where I think our 

first allegiance ought to be in making these decisions. 

Mr. SMITH. I want to thank this extraordinary panel for your insights. These views will be widely disseminated on Capitol Hill. I 

would note for the record and ask unanimous consent that a letter 

I wrote along with Chairman Hyde be included in the record at this 

point. 

[The information referred to follows:]

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29835a.eps
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Mr. SMITH. Even if we have serious problems with what is going 

on, I think the U.S. needs to be involved in the UN Human Rights 

Council. Your point is well taken, Mr. Halperin, although I certainly understand Mr. Schaefer’s point as well. 

Thank you all so much. We look forward to hearing from you in 

the future, as we will be holding follow-up hearings to this one. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:26 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JEFF FORTENBERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEBRASKA

Mr. Chairman, thank you for focusing our efforts today on the United Nations 

Human Rights Council. I appreciate the hard work that went into this hearing and 

your efforts to keep the issue of human rights central to the work of this Subcommittee and to our consideration of U.N. reform. 

I look forward to hearing from our distinguished witnesses, and commend them 

for working to keep governments cognizant of the duty to provide fundamental justice and uphold human dignity for the people subject to their authority, especially 

for the world’s most vulnerable and marginalized persons. 

I believe that it is critical for the U.N. Human Rights Council to diligently and 

objectively uphold the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human 

Rights. While I fully understand the concerns which led the United States to vote 

against the resolution to replace the widely discredited Human Rights Commission 

with the Council, I am confident that we remain vigilant in our cooperation with 

Council members in an observer capacity to further our nation’s longstanding commitment to an authentic and credible human rights agenda in the United Nations. 

It is also my understanding that the United States may consider running for the 

Council in 2007, and I am eager to hear the testimony and assessment of our witnesses as to whether ’reform’ or ’regression’ best describes the Council’s activities 

to date and how they envision the prospects for future U.S. participation on the 

Council. 

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