[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 13]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 17891-17893]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          THE U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL: REFORM OR REGRESSION?

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 12, 2006

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, last week I chaired a hearing 
to examine 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 self-congratulatory 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

[[Page 17892]]

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, the subcommittee that I 
chair, the Subcommittee of Africa, Global Human Rights and 
International Operations, held a hearing on the Council's predecessor, 
the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. In my statement at that hearing, I 
noted that the Commission had come under increasing criticism from 
numerous quarters. A U.N. 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. U.N. 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 U.N. 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 U.N. conferences. Treaties are 
negotiated by U.N. 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. U.N. 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 U.N. 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 U.N. 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 U.N. 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 U.N. 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 U.N. 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.
  I therefore convened the September 6th hearing to examine what needs 
to be done to prevent the Council from repeating or further regressing 
from the failures of the Commission

[[Page 17893]]

on Human Rights, as well as to support any signs of improvement over 
its predecessor. The Subcommittee explored 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 members of the Subcommittee benefited from the testimony 
of our distinguished witnesses that provided us with the means for such 
an evaluation.

                          ____________________