INTERVIEW-New U.N. rights body must improve-U.N.'s Arbour
Source: Reuters
By Richard Waddington GENEVA, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The United Nations' new human rights watchdog may not yet be living up to its mandate to defend fundamental freedoms worldwide, but it is too early to call it a failure, a top U.N. official said on Friday. Launched six months ago as a major U.N. reform, the Human Rights Council has been accused of succumbing to the same political posturing and manipulation that was the downfall of its long discredited predecessor, the Human Rights Commission. "It is nowhere living up to its potential quite yet...(but) I think it is premature to write it off," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour told Reuters in an interview. Arbour said key decisions were still to be taken on how the 47-state Council should work, she said. "There are things in there that could make it significantly different and significantly better than the Commission," Arbour said, referring to the rules of operation which the Council has to finalise by next June. Periodic review of all U.N. members' rights records, which did not happen under the Commission, was a crucial change. It would make it harder for states such as North Korea to argue they were being picked on for political reasons when criticised. Arbour, who works independently from the Council but cooperates closely with it, said a planned special session on Darfur next Tuesday was a hopeful sign it would look beyond the Middle East, which dominated its early work. SUBSTANTIAL STEP Since June, the Council has held three special sessions to condemn alleged Israeli violations in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon and on Friday it passed a new resolution, a seventh, critical of the Jewish state. The way to address this allegedly excessive focus on the Middle East was not to ignore violations there, but to do more about those occurring elsewhere, she said. "I think this session on Darfur is a very substantial step in that direction," said Arbour. She said she hoped Tuesday's session of the Council, where African, Arab and Muslim states have previously blocked overt criticism of Sudan, would help end what she called "this present state of denial" about what was happening in Darfur. "The truth is that there are extremely severe violations of human rights on a very large scale perpetrated in a climate of virtual total impunity," Arbour said. According to aid officials, some 200,000 people have died in Darfur and more than 2 million have been driven from their homes since 2003 when rebels took up arms alleging government neglect of the huge region the size of France. ATMOSPHERE OF OPPRESSION On the Middle East, Arbour said while she understood Israel's need to defend itself, the measures it had taken were in the long run only going to increase the threat against it. The military operations, the barrier around the West Bank and the checkpoints might yield some short-term strategic gain but they were not sustainable over time, she said. "It is creating such an atmosphere of oppression that it can only radicalise sections of Palestinian society," she said. "Large, large numbers of innocent, peaceful civilians are being very seriously penalised." The former Canadian Supreme Court judge and war crimes prosecutor declared herself firmly against any deal with Uganda's brutal Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels to protect them from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The LRA, whose leaders are wanted for war crimes such as torture, rape, and the mutilation and kidnapping of children, says it wants the charges dropped as part of any negotiated end to 20 years of fighting in the north of the African country. "The U.N. position is very clear. We will never support or condone amnesties for serious international crimes," said Arbour, who as war crimes prosecutor issued the indictment that brought former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic to trial.
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