Advancing Human Rights: U.S. Human Rights Country Resolutions and Replacing the UN Commission on Human Rights

MR. BAILY: Good afternoon and welcome to the Foreign Press Center. I'm pleased on this busy day you've all come out to come to today's briefing on "Advancing Human Rights: Human Rights Country Resolutions and an update on the Human Rights Commission."

With us today we have Dr. Mark Lagon, who is our Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs; we have Ms. Julieta Noyes from our Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; and we have Ms. Goli Ameri, who is the Senior Adviser and Public Delegate to our delegation for the UNGA this year. We'll start off with a few brief statements and then take your questions. Thank you.

DR. LAGON: Thanks a lot for coming. What we thought about doing today in initial remarks was touching on three related topics. Currently in the UN General Assembly -- the GA's third committee is dealing with human rights issues as it does every year. The United States is working with its partners in the world, trying to pursue some resolutions on specific situations and countries where human rights abuses continue, some important thematic issues, particularly related to democracy. We're going to touch on those two areas. And then finally at the end, we'd like to talk about the reform of the human rights mechanisms of the UN, in particular taking the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva and replacing it with a Human Rights Council that would meet through the year and deal with some of the aspects of the commission that are dysfunctional.

So why don't we start with Julieta Noyes with the Human Rights Bureau on country-specific resolutions.

MS. NOYES: Good afternoon. The Third Committee this year is considering seven separate country-specific resolutions and I'll just run through them quickly and tell you where the U.S. position is on each of these resolutions.

The highest priority resolution for our Government this year is the resolution about the situation in Iran. The Iranian Government continues to deprive its people of the freedom that they seek and deserve, through summary executions, disappearances, torture, restricted freedom of speech, assembly and press. The imprisonment of Akbar Gangi for peaceful advocacy of a representative and accountable government is a very serious violation. Women and minorities, including non-Muslims like the Baha’i continue to be cruelly discriminated against. The unelected Guardian Council of Clerics decided who could run in the last election, disqualifying over a thousand candidates, including all the women who were seeking to run, and those elections failed to meet any international standards.

As a result, the Government of Canada has chosen this year to again sponsor a resolution on Iran. My government is proud to be a co-sponsor of that resolution.

Another very serious human rights situation is that in North Korea -- in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. That regime remains the most oppressive in the world, denying its people the most basic freedoms of religion, conscience and speech, assembly and association. Prisoners are tortured, starved, forced into hard labor, forced to have abortions, sometimes forced to watch the murder of their children with infanticide, ultimately executed.

People are totally barred from changing their government through elections and many people just choose to leave, become refugees in order to escape from that situation. The European Union is sponsoring a resolution on the situation in DPRK and, again, my government is very proud to be a cosponsor of that resolution.

The very poor human rights situation in Burma is deteriorating. It's home to, or has become one of the world's greatest, human rights violators. There are over a thousand political and religious prisoners detained in Burma and arrests of pro-democracy supporters continue. Aung San Suu Kyi continues to be held in detention. She is the only Nobel laureate so held in the world.

The goal in Burma is a meaningful, inclusive and credible dialogue about national reconciliation and democracy. The EU is sponsoring a resolution on Burma and my government supports that resolution.

The human rights situation in Turkmenistan remains extremely poor. Freedom of assembly, speech and the press are nonexistent, political opposition is strictly prohibited. The president, with a cult of personality, reles by decree. None of the other bodies, like the rubber stamp parliament and the People's Council, have any real authority. The United States tabled a resolution on Turkmenistan, and we were joined by a number of other co-sponsors, including the 25 countries of the European Union.

Nearby in Uzbekistan, the world was appalled by the recent events in Andijan. We demand an independent international investigation of that tragedy and the events that led up to it. We are deeply concerned about the harassment and restrictions on journalists and nongovernmental groups seeking to follow up on those events. We encourage Tashkent to allow freedom for all religious groups. The EU is sponsoring a resolution on Uzbekistan and the U.S. is considering that resolution in light of Uzbekistan's record.

There's another country that's the subject of a proposed resolution this year, but we are very pleased to note that there has been some progress. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a constitutional referendum is currently scheduled for the 18th of December and general elections for next year. This could be a turning point for the Democratic Republic of Congo. We would hope that the Committee, the Third Committee, would support efforts to bring effective governance, respect for human rights and the rule of law to all of the people of that country. It is our sincere hope that these recent events will open the way for there to be no resolutions next year on the Democratic Republic of Congo.

And the final resolution is one which is being sponsored by the European Union -- Democratic Republic of Congo, by the way, is being sponsored by the European Union. The final resolution that I'll discuss today is that on Sudan, which is being sponsored also by the European Union. We are all appalled by the continuing violence there and by the grave humanitarian needs of over two million people who have been displaced as a result of the violence. Government security forces there continue to be responsible for extrajudicial killings, disappearances, arbitrary arrest, torture and rape, and they continue to act with impunity.

The January 9th signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement for Sudan was historic, and it ended 22 years of civil war. We urge the government of national unity there to build on this and to improve the human rights record throughout the country, in particular by establishing accountability for all of the atrocities. We urge all parties there and in Darfur to reach a political settlement that will enable internally displaced people to return with dignity to build a better future.

And with that I will turn it over to Goli to talk about our thematic resolutions this year.

MS. AMERI: Good afternoon, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. As Mark and Julieta mentioned, we are tabling two thematic resolutions at the UN this year. One, on an anti-correction resolution called the Incompatibility Between Corruption and the Full Enjoyment of Human Rights. And the other one, a resolution on elections, a biannual resolution called Strengthening the Role of UN to Enhance the Effectiveness of Elections.

Both of these thematic resolutions, coupled with our enthusiastic support of the UN Democracy Caucus, are very much in line with the Administration's policy of promoting democracy, freedom and the rule of law and human rights around the world.

Now, as far as the anti-corruption resolution is concerned, in advance of the UN activities to promote democracy and human rights, we are tabling this resolution. As you all know, corruption is a huge challenge to democracy and democratic movement. Corruption in elections obviously leads to reduced representation and accountability. Corruption in the judiciary leads to absence of individual rights of the citizenry. And corruption in the public sector basically leads to the absence of benefits for the general public. And most importantly, what corruption in a country does is it impacts the poor of that country the most because obviously they don't have the money or the resources to pay the necessary bribes to be able to receive the services that they deserve. And therefore, they are politically disenfranchised, they can't find the right kind of employment and they are also hurt in the process of the judiciary.

Our belief is that basically that democracy and corruption sort of has a circular cause-and-effect relationship, because democratic, transparent governments do not have corruption. And basically an absence of corruption leads to a better democratic system.

The other resolution that we're tabling this year is a biannual resolution on elections, which strengthens the role of the UN to enhance the effectiveness of elections. And basically what it does is it commends the work on the UN in monitoring elections. It encourages the members to continue contributing to the vital efforts of the United Nations in this area.

The resolution also encourages the UN to continue to provision experts and observers, provide technical advice, provide capacity building for national electoral institutions, to provide human and financial resources and it encourages member states that will contribute to the Secretary's trust fund for electoral observation.

Now, as far as the UN Democracy Caucus is concerned, we enthusiastically support this caucus. As you all know, this is an informal group of democratic countries that are working on a variety of projects that are related to the promotion of democracy around the world.

We are delighted with the work of Mali, which chairs the UN Democracy Caucus this year and has produced a draft program of work for the UN Democracy Caucus, which includes new projects, such as discussions on the topic of the Human Rights Council, which Mark will go into shortly, as well as the UN Democracy Fund, encouraging member states, democratic states, to continue their contributions to the UN Democracy Fund and also for the mutual support of other democracies draft resolution. The United States would like to engage the UN Democracy Caucus and to have them be a vehicle to gain support for the elections resolution that we are tabling.

And just as a last word before I turn it over to Mark, basically the job of the UN Democracy Caucus is to focus on the responsibility of democratic countries to work together to be able to reform the United Nations. Thank you.

DR. LAGON: I think I'll transition to what I was going to talk about but I did want to say one word, that the U.S. Government does something interest and fairly unique in diplomatic efforts at the UN. Goli Ameri served twice now as a Public Delegate, a member of the U.S. Delegation to the UN's work on human rights last spring to the Commission on Human Rights and now on our Delegation to the UN General Assembly. We have a tradition of including public delegates, representing civil society so that we don't only have diplomats as part of our delegation working on such issues at the UN and it's very lucky that we have her on our team and here today.

Goli rightly points out that the Democracy Caucus, based on the community of democracy and its participants, have a responsibility as nations with rule of law at home to work on building a more meaningful international law and a reformed UN, and we're working with such partners in the democratic world and all nations in the UN to try and reform the machinery of the UN devoted to human rights.

Very interestingly, the Secretary General, Kofi Annan, came and spoke as he does every year at the annual session of the Commission on Human Rights, and he said that the declining credibility of the Commission on Human Rights casts a shadow on the entire UN system. Later in the session, the High Commissioner for Human Rights also said there was desperate need to address the declining credibility of the Commission. And as there was a world summit of heads of state in September, one of the commitments of world leaders in the process of UN reform was to replace the Commission on Human Rights with a Human Rights Council, which would meet throughout the year and be poised to help deal with important situations in the world, not principally to condemn but to be able to offer a lending hand to nations in transition, but also to speak truth to power when some governments are not facing their responsibilities to their own people in terms of human rights.

I've just returned from one of many trips to New York, working on building broader support for a Human Rights Council. The communicator outcome document of the UN Summit of Leaders provides for finishing negotiations by the end of this General Assembly, as soon as possible. And we are working with key partners in all of the five regional groupings of the UN to try and create a council which would meet not 52 weeks a year but regularly in sessions through the year, be prepared to offer technical assistance to transitional states, be prepared, as the Outcome Document of the UN summit says, to address situations of grave human rights abuses and systematic human rights abuses.

I'd be happy to take questions about how we might improve the UN human rights apparatus. One of the things we're focusing on, in addition to the important mandate of the body, is the credibility of the membership. There is a critical mass of spoilers among the actors in the Commission on Human Rights, which punctures the credibility of the institution. We hope that there will be a way to improve the membership and, hence, the value of the work of the UN's principal human rights body. Thanks.

MR. BAILY: If I could ask you to state your name and news organization before your question. I also note we have some participants in New York and if they would move to the camera, we can recognize them as well.

DR. LAGON: Please let us know who you want to ask a question of because we're all a team.

QUESTION: My name is Andrei Sitov with the Russian news agency, ITAR-TASS here in Washington. I wanted to ask you exactly about your last point, about the membership. So how do you go about -- what is, at least, what is your government's perspective on how you go about selecting countries for the council?

DR. LAGON: The proposal is that elections would take place in the UN General Assembly. And I think that most important, as an institution is created, is that there be an understanding among the membership of the UN that they should look at candidates for their record on how they promote and protect human rights at home and abroad and that there should be some assessment of their commitment. The culture of elections at the UN has to change.

Just one more point. There may be some technical provisions established for reinforcing that idea. One proposal is that it should require two-thirds of the membership of the General Assembly to elect members, questions that are considered special and serious questions in the UN are treated under the UN charter with a two-thirds vote. We, too, have proposed other ideas, such as that those nations or governments that are under Security Council sanctions for their human rights record should be disqualified, in the view of the United States.

QUESTION: So there should be some formal criteria to bar some of the undesirables.

DR. LAGON: We can --

QUESTION: Also, I mean, in light of what you just told us about the two-thirds majority being required, with all due respect, sir, given the anti-American feeling in many parts of the world today, doesn't the U.S. Government run the risk of being excluded itself from the -- that it will not get the two-thirds majority. Do I understand you correctly that the U.S. Government wants to be on the council?

DR. LAGON: The U.S. Government does want to be on the council. It wants to be a vigorous member of the council to raise important issues, thematic and country-specific. There is a risk, but we think that there should be a sense of standards, qualitative standards. And the United States, you know, will leap into elections in an effort to get on board. The key thing is to establish a dynamic in which nations look once, look twice, look three times at some of the worst human rights abusers and consider whether they deserve a seat at the table.

MR. BAILY: Next question.

QUESTION: Kiyon Kuk with Segye Times, Korea. The European Union is able to bring to a vote later this month at the UN General Assembly a UN resolution to condemn North Korea. So how are you going to cooperate with European Union and the other countries to pass that resolution? And then one more, if I may. South Korea will abstain on the vote, so how are you -- are you planning to ask South Korea to join you? Thank you.

DR. LAGON: Let me start and then Julieta may want to join on country-specific resolutions, which she addressed. You know, we fully support the idea that one of the most repression regimes in the world ought to be addressed with a resolution. I mean, the test for whether you need to have a country-specific resolution is if there's no will whatsoever on the part of a regime to work with the international community, to seek help to improve human rights. We think it is a very good thing that the European Union has taken the lead on such a resolution.

As for South Korea, you know, they have their sovereign decisions to make but, of course, we think this resolution fully deserves co-sponsorship and support and they, as much as any, should be able to see how brethren to the North suffer from repression.

Did you want to add anything?

MS. NOYES: Sure. And just to respond to your question on how the U.S. will get support for that resolution, we have all kinds of vehicles for encouraging our partners to join with us. Obviously, we have diplomacy, day-to-day meetings in New York at the General Assembly. We also -- occasionally, we'll send messages through our embassies in capitals, urging our partners to join on these resolutions. Public diplomacy is another mechanism that we use largely in order, for example, to publicize the situation in North Korea and the terrible repression that the people there are suffering.

So there's a variety of mechanisms at our disposal. Frankly, in this case, it won't necessarily be all that difficult because the North Korean Government is doing a very good job itself of publicizing the reasons why we need this resolution to be passed.

MR. BAILY: You have a question. In the front row here, please.

QUESTION: Y. Adu-Otu, AfricaNewscast.com. We have heard that the poor are most vulnerable to corruption and I believe that. But my question is how do the poor get anything done when they see that corruption is rampant in the particular country? In a number of African countries, because corruption is at the top level of government, as you know, when an allegation is brought out to public through the press, the question from the authorities is substantiate before we investigate. And because we don't have the -- the poor do not have the capacity to substantiate then the allegations do not get investigated.

And also, these kinds of situations have led to military interventionism. So my question to the three of you: How do people -- do the poor people in these poor African countries get anything done to have their issues resolved?

DR. LAGON: And again, I'll start and Goli might continue. You've put your finger on it -- an important way in which anti-corruption involves the intermingled spheres of different rights and different problems.

The UN has traditionally dealt with the issue of corruption in its second committee of the UN General Assembly on economic affairs. And we thought it was important working with members of the Democracy Caucus to look at this issue in the context of human rights and the denial of the ability of people to have accountable government.

Also, you put your finger on the way other freedoms are connected to freedom from corruption. If you don't have a free press, if you don't have the white-hot spotlight of the press to look at a situation of allegations of corruption, they can be buried. They can be swept under the rug. And the poor can never have those limits on their empowerment released.

MS. AMERI: You know, I think I'm going to answer this question from a public delegate point of view, which is sort of an outsider to the system. When I first went to Geneva to the Commission on Human Rights, it's sort of a demoralizing process. After two weeks, you kind of wonder how is this possible. This is a Commission on Human Rights but they're not as focused on the rights of people as they really should be. But the one encouraging point from that truly was this UN Democracy Caucus, because this UN Democracy Caucus is so focused on righting the wrongs that exist at the United Nations or at the Commission on Human Rights. And it's only when democracies get together, bond together, just like a lot of the regional groupings at the UN that, you know, manage to get together and pass or hinder resolutions.

I think this UN democracy focus can be a tremendous help in helping propagate the fundamentals of democracy. And I think, as I said, clearly corruption and democracy are sort of a circular thing. The absence of one leads to the promotion of others.

QUESTION: I have a follow-up.

MR. BAILY: We have a follow-up here. Wait until the mike.

QUESTION: It seems to me that so far I have not had a direct response to the issue of how the poor can be helped to have their grievances addressed at the highest level because the people who are the council would be -- the Democracy Council (sic) are appointed by the governments of their home countries. And I want to suggest that by its very definition, corruption is an act of individuals in government, especially, who use their positions for personal gains. And therefore, if the poor is not represented up there, how are their problems -- grievances going to be resolved?

DR. LAGON: Let me take that, and I don't know whether we'll address it in the way that you'd like but I think it is relevant. Our hope to improve the machinery of the UN human rights by creating a Human Rights Council is based in large part on the idea that there should be help offered in the form of technical assistance. We're actually proposing that we boost -- double -- the funding of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to be able to give technical assistance. And it really would be designed to help countries create protections so that people can bring their grievances forward about denial of political freedoms and corruption.

You mentioned the Democracy Caucus and leaders of governments being there. I will not say that you don't see cases of cases in democratic countries. Of course, you do. But the participants in the community of democracies -- I would say the members of the Democracy Caucus come from the more open governments of the world, the ones that have taken strides on transparency and are more likely to grapple with corruption and certainly shine a light on cases of corruption if they do occur.

MR. BAILY: In the back row to Italy.

QUESTION: Giampiero Gramaglia, Italian News Agency, ANSA. Do you consider the Human Rights Council a piece of the general reform of the United Nation or do you consider a goal reachable outside the general reform?

DR. LAGON: It's very much part of the larger reform effort. It's the view of the United States that we have, you know, there are several priorities coming out of the UN World Summit. For instance, there's discussion of creating a peace building commission to deal with post-conflict transitions. There is discussion of management reform of the UN, particularly in the wake of the Oil-for-Food program. And there is a focus on replacing the Commission on Human Rights with a Human Rights Council. We think these are all high priorities. We must not charge ahead on any one and neglect others.

And there's great interest, I have to say, in the Legislative Branch of the United States in both management reform and in the creation of a Human Rights Council. They are concerned with the greater legitimacy and accountability of UN institutions. And so it's very much at the heart of the broader effort on UN reform.

MR. BAILY: Question to -- front row here.

QUESTION: Thank you. I'm actually following up on Giampiero's question before I ask my own. Previously, the reform of the Security Council was put on the context of the general reform at the UN, basically meaning that there's no hurry. We don't have to rush with the Security Council reform. We need to put that into context. Are you saying here and now that there is no urgency with this new council creation? And that they can also proceed at a leisurely pace --

DR. LAGON: No.

QUESTION: -- with the other reforms?

DR. LAGON: No. At the risk of sounding inconsistent, we do think it's urgent and we do think, you know, heads of state have committed to working relatively quickly to replace the old body and to replace it with something worthy, not just replace it with anything.

In the case of the Security Council, the question we asked in the weeks leading up to the UN summit of leaders was, was there enough broad support for a particular plan for expansion of the UN Security Council that was ripe and whether in fact it would crowd out the possibility for other things being achieved. That (inaudible) it is in favor of a process to look at how to reform the UN Security Council, particularly looking at appropriate criteria that we have laid out for those who have something that they can bring to the council was permanent members, including their good governance and their willing to devote resources and deal with the (inaudible) peace and security issues of the day. But we do think that there is, in fact, quite a bit of support -- broad support for improving the UN human rights machinery. We need to get to the business of an open and transparent negotiation so that everybody can be satisfied about the details. But we want to get on with it.

QUESTION: And the follow-up to my own line of questioning was, presumably, the members -- the new members of the new council will be willing to have the spotlight be on their own record. And again, the American press, which is very free and independent, has now shown us that there are some major questions about human rights issues here -- what was the prisoner abuse and other stuff. I will not go into it.

Is your government willing to subject its own record to a review? (Inaudible) I understand that everybody expects it will be elected to the new council. Thank you.

DR. LAGON: All nations should expose themselves, transparently, about what their record is. And there'll be a quibble about details, about how precisely that review will go. There's discussion in the new Human Rights Council whether there will be a mechanism of a peer review, by members of the Council, and we'll get into the details about whether that's the most useful way to do that. But the United States is committed to it and in fact, relatively recently, the United States issued an invitation to three special rapporteurs from the UN who wished to visit Guantanamo to see the facility there. And while there may be a dispute about the details and it's based on the idea that there should be some transparency in our overall policy, that motivates them and we'll be prepared for that as we reform the UN's institutions.

MR. BAILY: Any other questions? Okay, one here.

QUESTION: Y. Abu-Otu. On occasions, on some occasions, the UN sponsors delegations to observe elections in some countries. Would it be reasonable for me to suggest that the same type of approach be conducted in the case of corruption? In this instance, I want to suggest that there are a significant social organization comes up with an allegation of corruption, would it be allowed to petition the UN body to then send a delegation to do ad hoc investigation and reports?

DR. LAGON: We are often asked why it would be necessary to have a Human Rights Council that exists through the year, rather than merely for the six weeks of theatre that exists currently in the spring session of the Commission on Human Rights. And one of the reasons is so that it might be able to deploy fact finding missions and observers, working with the operational arm of the human rights machinery, which is the office of our High Commissioner.

Perhaps the behavior of governments -- of member-states in the UN -- should be subject to examination of such fact finding missions and observers when it comes to corruption. We do think that the work of the Human Rights Council, or currently the third committee of the UN General Assembly, should be looking at the commitments and the responsibilities of states to fight corruption, but they should be subject to the kind of transparency I spoke of earlier.

Now, I don't know if you wanted to add anything in general along that area or --

MS. AMERI: I think you covered it very well.

MR. BAILY: Time for one quick last question here.

QUESTION: Giampiero Gramaglia, Italian News Agency, ANSA. A quick question on timing. If I remember well, the General -- the UN summit asked for a decision for an effort to decide before the end of the year -- before the end of the year -- we are halfway to the end of the year. Now, do you still consider a possible decision before the end of the year?

DR. LAGON: You're talking about a Human Rights Council? Technically, the outcome document from the summit says that this issue must be settled by the end of the General Assembly, the one year end General Assembly. But the General Assembly -- President Jan Eliasson has said that we should move forward as quickly as possible and hopefully by year's end. He set up a negotiation process where there have been consultations for about a month and draft texts of a resolution to create a council will begin to be the subject of intensive negotiations on November 28th. It's quite possible that the work can be done in the course of December, but we will work at it as long as it takes to get it done, especially as we're moving towards the regularly scheduled session of the Commission on Human Rights next March. It's time that that institution be replaced.

Thank you.