My powder is still dry on this one.

John Bolton has just indicated that America will vote "No" if negotiations are not re-opened on the embryonic Human Rights Council that is being promulgated to succeed the Human Rights Commission whose human rights-violating members has caused such dismay among UN fans and skeptics alike.

The New York Times endorsed yesterday John Bolton's stance and derided well-meaning human rights advocates who they argued were trading "multilateral consensus" for substance when it comes to getting a new global human rights-concerned institution in place.

On the other side of the debate, a group of high profile NGOs have sent the following letter to Secretary of State Rice -- and it is well worth reading:

JOINT NGO LETTER -- February 23, 2006

The Honorable Condoleezza Rice

Secretary of State

U.S. Department of State

2201 C Street NW

Washington, DC 20520

 

Dear Secretary Rice:

We are urgently writing to request that the United States support the draft resolution for the new Human Rights Council proposed today by the President of the General Assembly.

This has not been an easy decision for us as it will not be for the United States. We have pushed hard for a more ambitious result than the one presented by Ambassador Eliasson as a consensus text after months of intensive negotiations. We have concluded, however, that the proposal represents a concrete step in the right direction and offers all of us a reasonable basis to stay engaged and fight for making the Council as effective as possible.

We believe that certain elements of the proposal are an improvement from the current situation and will increase chances for a better membership of the Council.

Member states must be elected by absolute majority in direct and individual voting. For the first time governments should consider a candidate’s human rights record, pledges and commitments.

Also for the first time, members of the Council that commit gross and systematic violations of human rights may be suspended. Meetings will take place at least three times a year for ten weeks, instead of just one six-week session a year, and additional sessions may be called by one-third of the Council membership.

These elements are vitally important to calling international attention to urgent cases of gross violations and forcing action to address them. A system of universal periodic review offers a new opportunity to hold states accountable to their human rights obligations in a less politicized process. Special procedures will be retained as will the tradition of access for nongovernmental organizations.

We believe that, under current circumstances, efforts to reopen the text or other delays in closing down the old Commission and establishing the new Council will not lead to a better result. Rather, we urge the United States to work closely with its democratic allies to ensure that the best possible candidates are put forward by each region and to insist that nominations be announced at least thirty days prior to election, to allow for public scrutiny of their human rights records and pledges.

We respectfully request a meeting with you at your earliest convenience to discuss further how we can work together to realize the potential this new Council offers.

Sincerely,

Eric Olson, Acting Director for Government Relations

Amnesty International USA

 

Karin D. Ryan, Senior Advisor for Human Rights

The Carter Center

 

Don Kraus, Executive Vice President

Citizens for Global Solutions

 

Richard C. Rowson, President

Council for a Community of Democracies

 

Ted Piccone, Executive Director

Democracy Coalition Project

 

Gabor Rona, International Legal Director

Human Rights First

 

Kenneth Roth, Executive Director

Human Rights Watch

 

Gareth Evans, President and CEO

International Crisis Group

 

Morton Halperin, Director of US Advocacy

Open Society Institute

 

Leonard Rubenstein, Executive Director

Physicians for Human Rights

 

 

Cc: Under Secretary Nicholas Burns

Under Secretary Paula Dobriansky

 

Senator Richard Lugar

Senator Joseph Biden

Rep. Henry Hyde

Rep. Tom Lantos

Thus, to summarize, the "achievements" of the current negotiations over what existed before are:

1.   That members of the Council will be elected by an absolute majority (rather than the 2/3 required vote that both the U.S. and Kofi Annan lobbied for)

2.   That human rights records will be a formal part of the package of consideration for nations pursuing Human Rights Council membership

3.   That human rights misbehaviors or violations can trigger suspensions from the Council

4.  And that there will be more time and sessions devoted each year to the work of global human rights concerns than was the case before. (10 weeks and multiple sessions vs. one 6 week session)

I agree with the NGO letter, John Bolton, and Kofi Annan that higher standards could have and should have been met by those wrestling over the architecture of this new Council.

However, John Bolton does not have the right to wear a "white hat" in this debate. 

His first stance on this was to require that all permanent members of the UN Security Council be automatic members of the Human Rights Council, thus providing legitimacy and membership to Russia and China as Human Rights Council members.

This Bolton proposal died, but he fought for it vigorously -- so it is beyond disingenuousness -- that he is rejecting what the UN has produced thus far because of the "low bar" it leaves for potential membership by human rights-abusing nations.

I am not entirely with the NGO community that we can not do better, and I'm not sure that it would be such a bad thing to re-open negotiations.  I need to study this more. 

However, America needs to pose the imaginative and the possible -- and needs to hold itself to high standards of behavior.  But part of that responsibility of leadership is also knowing when to fold, and when to keep playing, and working with things as they are, not just as we'd like them to be.

Read this bit on some previous Richard Holbrooke testimony about the cost of American disengagement from the UN -- and how this led to some of the serious misdirection of the UN Human Rights Commission.

There must be some play in the "my way" or "no way" game that John Bolton is playing.