Righting Our Human Rights Policy
I argued ten days ago, contra Ivo and with Steve Clemons, that we should not oppose the compromise proposal for a new Human Rights Council on the grounds a) that this was a case of the best (the Secretary General's original proposal for a new Human Rights Council that would have required a 2/3 vote of the General Assembly for membership) being the enemy of the good (the current proposal requires only a majority vote); and b) that in light of John Bolton's failure to make it clear to General Assembly President Jan Eliasson that the 2/3 requirement was a dealbreaker, opposing the compromise now would look like either pure political grandstanding for domestic purposes or an effort to sabotage any serious UN reform, or both. Yesterday morning the U.S. once again managed to isolate itself diplomatically, standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel, the Marshall Islands, and Palau in voting against the new Council, with 170 other nations, including all of our closest allies, voting for. And this when the Administration claims to be once again placing a priority on diplomacy.
If the story ended there, it would be a disaster. In fact, however . . .
word from the U.N. has it that Secretary Rice pushed hard to soften Bolton's stated opposition to the Council, although the U.S. still voted no rather than abstained. Far more important, though, was the announcement later in the day that the U.S. would in fact help to fund the Council and would pledge support for making it "as strong and effective as it can be." According to the Washington Post, debate has also started within the government over whether the U.S. will stand for membership.
These are very welcome words. As Executive Director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth said yesterday: "The new council should be a great improvement over the old Commission on Human Rights, but today's vote is only the beginning." The job now is to get ourselves elected and work to get other countries who are serious about human rights elected while blocking, in Roth's words, "governments that systematically repress their people." The Boston Globe editorial gets it right: the new Council's effectiveness will depend not only on its members but on "the rules and procedures they adopt for their work."
Meantime, the administration may have learned an important lesson. When we stood similarly isolated on the vote in 1997 on the International Criminal Court, the Bush Administration responded by going all out to attack the Court. Here, having lost the vote, the U.S. appears to be showing the world that it is nevertheless willing to roll up its sleeves and get to work making the new institution a success. If we live up to our word, that will be a very welcome change.
Not to nitpick, but Clinton was president in 1997. I also recall President Bush being adamantly opposed to the ICC, but his opposition must have manifested around some issue that occurred after he took office in 2001.
March 17, 2006 5:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is a welcome change. It's interesting too, that Bolton who was widely touted as the right man to reform the UN apparently has turned out to be somewhat irrelevant. The UN didn't listen to Bolton, and now the administration seems willing to accept the UN's decisions regardless of Bolton's objections to those decisions.
March 17, 2006 6:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
And I remember backto the Bolton nomination hearings when Rice offered the assurance the Bolton would be on a tight leash.
March 17, 2006 7:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
The first test of whether this is in fact a reformed and serious body will be if the U.S. gets a seat. We're certainly not the worst human rights abuser in the world but we absolutely have the most "diverse" and "globalized" collection of abusees, and we're certainly the only country with a president (and vice-president) who trumpets his right to torture and sexually abuse anybody he pleases. Putting us on this Council would be like giving Saudi Arabia a chair on the Alternative Energy Commission.
March 17, 2006 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good comment. And it doesn't seem to me to be nitpicking to expect someone to know who the President was in 1997 if she is going to be critiquing the decisions made then!
March 17, 2006 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
We shall see. But what's missing in this post is actual evidence that the current Council is streamlined such that it will, in fact, be a considerable improvement. I suppose all can agree that "rolling up sleeves" and getting to work is a good thing, but institutional structures matter and there's no reason to assume that this Council's structures are significantly improved.
But we can hope.
And, I can't resist a nitpick. A week or so ago Prof Slaughter wrote the following in regard to the new Council:
--
"I increasingly suspect that the real agenda is far more sweeping reform -- call it reconstruction. A colleague of mine said recently that she thinks we may be headed for a major reconfiguration of all the U.N. institutions: transformation of the UN into a purely security institution; transferral of all the non-security parts of the U.N. to the World Bank; and the effective dissolution of the IMF. I will invite her to elaborate further on the blog, with evidence. But one way to try to ensure revolution is to block reform in any form, which is what it looks like Bolton is doing."
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So what happened to this wholescale transformation? And to the evidence that was to be cited in its support? It isn't just that -- then and now -- I see no possible way for this to be within the realm of the plausible. It's also that it smacks of conspiracy speculation. One of the reasons I prefer reading the writings of Slaughter (of whose work, this nitpick aside, I am a great admirer), Daalder, et al is to get past uninformed speculation and into fact-based analysis.
Rather than hopes of good works to come or speculation about reconstruction, I think what should be focused on is the reality of the Council -- which is nothing to write home about.
And, again, I write this respectfully -- who knows, maybe the IMF will be dissolved and the non-security elements of the U.N. integrated into the WB. I seriously doubt it, but god knows I've been wrong to assume rational policy from the Bush Administration plans before. (though, even if this were a plan, it'd still never get enacted.)
March 21, 2006 5:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
We need to focus less on human rights. After all, what is our ultimate goal as a people, to have one large global community without borders? Sounds a little to Marxist in my eyes. And such a vision is fundamentally impossible when taking into consideration the level of religious intolerance that we still see today; which is, in fact, greater that it has ever been in world history. If torture against willing terrorists and combatants can help resolve the current conflicts, why not use it? The 20th century was the first century in human history where "rules" became so important. Yes World War I brought the imminent need for certain restraints, but our civilization today is no better than those which have gone to dust over time.
March 22, 2006 7:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
While the U.S. under Clinton found itself isolated by its insistence on carving out broad exemptions to ICC jurisdiction, Clinton remained engaged in ongoing negotiations over the ICC right up to the end of his term of office.
He actually signed the Rome Statute on December 31, 2001 but did not submit it to the Senate for ratification and indicated in his statement when he signed it that he did not recommend his successor submit it until U.S. concerns had been met. He did this because as a signatory, even one that had not ratified the treaty, the U.S. had more rights to take part in negotiations over the formation of the court and future ammendments to the Rome Statute.
George Bush was far more hostile to the ICC. Among other things, he has completely withdrawn the U.S. from all ICC negotiations, has used the threat of withdrawing military cooperation and other aid to negotiate bilateral agreements with other countries preventing them from surrending U.S. nationals to the ICC and refused to support any U.N. resolutions that recognize even the existence of the ICC.
See:
http://www.unausa.org/site/pp.asp?c=fvKRI8MPJpF&b=345925
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court
for more information.
March 23, 2006 2:19 AM | Reply | Permalink