Juan Gasparini and Carole Vann/InfoSud - A court to judge UN experts! This is one of the recommendations in the latest reworking of the proposed code of conduct presented to members of the Human Rights Council by Idriss Jazairy, the Algerian ambassador to the UN and spokesmen for the African group.
The proposal has the backing of most of the Asian and Islamic countries as well as Russia and Cuba.
The text, presented at an informal meeting, suggests “an ethical group” that would reprimand a Special Rapporteur who steps out of line. In other words, if a country is upset by an expert’s report, it can complain. This would trigger a quasi judicial process within the United Nations.
The news has divided the African group, with some up in arms and others giving it their backing. “I am against an ethical committee” said the new Ghanaian ambassador, Leslie Kojo Christian, “and I have made this clear during our working groups. We will not sign up to a document that includes such a proposal!”. Embarrassed by such a clear public statement, Idriss Jazairy passed the hot potato to his Moroccan counterpart, who was at a loss for words.
At that informal meeting, the European Union, Switzerland, other western countries and certain Latin American countries objected to a number of points in the proposed code of conduct. «Amongst our major preoccupations is the interaction with the media », said Michael Steiner, the German ambassador who represents the EU at the UN. In effect, the code limits the autonomy of the experts in their relations with the media during their in country investigations. Another worry is the sources of information available to the Rapporteur when he makes his assessment on the ground. What truth are we taking about? That imposed by the State - as the authors of the code envisage - or that of the UN special rapporteur who acts according to his conscience?
«In this very room where the UN human rights council sits, how many times in my 27 years as a Rapporteur have I been called a liar or in cahoots with the terrorists ? » asked Louis Joinet the « doyen » of the Special Rapporteurs interviewed a few months ago. They said I had been manipulated. I have even been accused of having been bought. But the wheels of history turn and the reality on the ground is often much worse than you thought. In such circumstances, it is me who tells the truth and not the State»
The document also specifies that a Rapporteur can only ask a government to take urgent action if there is a risk that victims might die. Indeed for most human rights violations, the likelihood of death is impossible to prove as everything is done in secret and often the enforced disappearances, the methods of torture and repression are carried out with the intention of keeping the prisoners alive.
The code of conduct is one of the major points of dispute that could prevent the Council reaching consensus on the shape of the new body by the 18th June. The president of the Council, Luis Alfonso de Alba is proposing to leave the vexing question of the code of conduct to the new council which meets on the 20th June. It will be his successor, the Romanian ambassador, Romulus Costae, who will inherit this poisoned chalice.
According to diplomatic sources, a deal does however seem to be on the cards: western countries and their allies would accept a less ambitious universal periodic review whereby countries place the human rights records of their peers under the microscope. Under this plan, the experts responsible for investigating human rights abuses would be paid UN civil servants and not voluntary independent experts. In return, the decision on the code of conduct is postponed and the principle of country experts would be included in the deal that De Alba will suggest is adopted by consensus on the 18th June. Up till now, the countries backing a code of conduct have managed to block the proposal for country experts.