SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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29–835PDF
2006
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
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Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations
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
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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
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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
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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
C O N T E N T S
WITNESSES
Mark Lagon, Ph.D., Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Organization Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Ms. Erica Barks-Ruggles, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State
Mr. Brett Schaefer, Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs, The Heritage Foundation
Mr. Hillel C. Neuer, Executive Director, United Nations Watch
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Ms. Jennifer Windsor, Executive Director, Freedom House
Morton H. Halperin, Ph.D, Executive Director, Open Society Policy Center
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
Mark Lagon, Ph.D.: Prepared statement
Ms. Erica Barks-Ruggles: Prepared statement
Mr. Brett Schaefer: Prepared statement
Mr. Hillel C. Neuer: Prepared statement
Ms. Jennifer Windsor: Prepared statement
Morton H. Halperin, Ph.D.: Prepared statement
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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 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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF 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
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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 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 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.
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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.
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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 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.
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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.)
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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 Barks-Ruggles 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.
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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 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.
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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, chose not to risk losing and didn't run, and some troublemakers ran and lost; notably Iran and Venezuela.
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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 once-a-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.
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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.
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.
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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 non-emergency 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.
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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 the second panel. They are valued colleagues and deeply committed to promoting freedom and democracy and UN reform.
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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 country-specific 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.
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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 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.
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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.
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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.
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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 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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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 one-third 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 territories. 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.
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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.
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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 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.
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[The prepared statement of Ms. Barks-Ruggles follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. ERICA BARKS-RUGGLES, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, 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.
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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 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.
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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.
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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 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.
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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.
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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 like-minded 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.
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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 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.
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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.
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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 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?
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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 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.
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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.
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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 advance. 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.
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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.
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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 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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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 blood-thirsty 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.
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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 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.
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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.
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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?
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.
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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?
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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 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 becau