Interview by Pamela Taylor - Coming from a country that has thrown off the yoke of tyranny and human rights abuse, Tomas Husak has a unique view of the importance of this task.
Ambassador Husak, do you think that coming from a country notorious in past decades for blocking the procedures of the former Human Rights Commission gives you a different perspective on what’s going on in today’s Human Rights Council?
It’s true that those of us in the former East bloc are more sensitive to many issues because of our recent memories of what can happen when there is a real absence of democratic respect for human rights. We have a lot of experience with what can happen when violators of human rights enjoy impunity because international organizations become politicized as happened with the former Commission. Politicizing the work of UN Special Rapporteurs for example has damaged the reputation of the whole system.
The Soviet Union and its former allies, including your own country, were partly responsible for that. Having witnessed the transition from tyranny to democracy does that give someone like you a different perspective on efforts by the bloc of Islamic and African countries to place limits on Council activities?
Our task is to work to restore trust in the institution. It’s not easy because the mandates of Special Rapporteurs were so politicized in the past. As the Secretary General said, the Special Rapporteurs are the ‘crown jewels’ of the Human Rights Commission. The independent investigators have always done a good job. The problem has been limiting what they can see and then what they can say.
Do you think other former East bloc countries who are now members of the Council are in a good position to influence others on the importance of issues like this?
As I said, we all have good experience with the consequences of ignoring human rights violations and we are prepared to share these experiences with others.
But some NGOs complain that former east bloc members don’t take the floor and speak up often enough on issues that they have more experience with than others and that they are seen as blindly following the lead of other EU countries.
Well, you can consider that most of us are among the so-called ‘likeminded’ members of the Council in that we don’t have many different viewpoints from other EU members. But at the same time we do have different individual perspectives that could influence positions taken by consensus as the EU tries to do.
With this in mind do you think the accession of Romania to the presidency of the Council will bring a different focus in any way?
No, I don’t expect there will be any great change in the Council. Possibly there will be greater sensitivity to certain issues such as the use of technical excuses to weaken the Council. But otherwise I don’t expect that the office of the presidency will change.