?I’ll do everything possible to make sure this Human Rights Council is open to the voices of the weaker.? This is how the Mexican ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba started his mandate at the head of the new United Nations body.
Yet, numerous NGOs from the South got a slap in the face when they found out that their governments had become members of the Council. Along with militants from the North, they are watching every step, worried about whether they are going to win or loose in this change.
?Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Marocco, Algeria, Tunisia are all responsible for thousands of lives that are being held in arbitrary detention, that have disappeared, been tortured or assassinated... and we’re giving these countries three years to defend and promote human rights in the world! This can’t be serious.? Mohamed Zitout is the spokesman for Al-Karama, a pan-Arabian NGO created in 2003 in Geneva aimed at denouncing cases of barbarity to the former Commission. From the start, NGOs from the South feel like they’ve been fooled.
The Council’s true face
The NGOs from the North want to wait and see. ?These elections are part of the UN’s rules?, explains Federico Andreu-Guzman, deputy secretary-general at the International Commission of Jurists.
Without a doubt for Guzman, the new Council provides room for improvement. But its true face will reveal itself when countries come up for periodic review and are fully scrutinized. ?That’s when we’ll truly see if there’s a double standard, adds Eric Sottas, director of the World Organisation against Torture.
When big powers like Russia or China come up for inspection will the other countries be capable of respecting the experts’ reports??
2000 NGOs
Mariette Grange, director of the Human Rights Watch office in Geneva, reminds us that at the Commission, NGOs had succeeded in getting their foot into the UN system with the possibility of intervening during sessions. ?On paper, this progress has been maintained, let’s see what happens in practice, she explains.
In the last fifteen years, the number of NGOs has gone from a few hundred to 2000. Giving each of them speaking time is yet another story...?
Another common concern: Will individual complaints take place in public? ?Up to now, when someone filed a complaint for torture or another violation, the debate was held behind closed doors. Even the plaintiff was excluded, explains Guzman. The rules need to be changed to make the system transparent.? The reply next year?