Scandal: Qatar, Congo, Pakistan set to join U.N.’s top rights body; UN Watch urges ‘No’ votes

GENEVA,– Despite a recent pledge by a Dutch-led coalition of 47 nations, today’s election for 15 seats on the U.N.’s highest human rights body will install up to 10 more non-democracies in a mostly uncontested race, which may prompt U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley to determine that her June warning before the council—to stop electing “the world’s worst human rights offenders”—has been flouted. In a detailed study released today by UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental human rights organization, finds that 7 out of 16 candidates have poor records and fail to qualify according to the UN’s own basic membership criteria: Afghanistan, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Qatar. The council already counts Saudi Arabia, Burundi, China, Cuba, Venezuela, and UAE as members.

In addition, the qualifications of candidates Mexico, Nepal, Senegal and Ukraine were deemed “questionable” due to their problematic human rights records or in their UN voting records. “Sadly, all signs are that the UN will disregard its own rules and principles by electing Afghanistan, Angola, DR Congo, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Qatar, even though the record shows that these governments violate the human rights of their own citizens,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, “and they consistently vote the wrong way on UN initiatives to protect the human rights of others.” “For the UN to elect Qatar, Congo or Pakistan as a world judge on human rights is like a making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief,” said Neuer. UN Watch is proposing two major reforms to the election system, said Neuer. “First, if our own democracies continue to disregard the election criteria by voting for abusers,” said Neuer, “then we should just scrap elections altogether, and make every country a member, as is the case in the General Assembly’s human rights committee. At least that way Saudi ambassadors around the world could no longer hold up their UNHRC election as a shield of international legitimacy to cover up the abuses of their regime.” “Second, vote trades flourish in the darkness of the UN’s archaic secret ballot system for elections. We need to make elections public, as is the case with all other kinds of UN voting, as sunshine is always the best disinfectant.” “Regrettably,” said Neuer, “despite their pledge in June to push for better membership and genuine competition among candidates, EU states have not said a word about hypocritical candidacies that only undermine the credibility and effectiveness of the UN human rights system. By turning a blind eye as even more human rights violators easily join and subvert the council, leading democracies will be complicit in the world body’s moral decline.” “It will be an insult to their political prisoners and many other victims — and a defeat for the global cause of human rights — if the UN helps gross abusers act as champions and global judges of human rights. When the U.N.’s highest human rights body becomes a case of the foxes guarding the henhouse, the world’s victims suffer,” said Neuer. Click here to read pledges made by the worst abusers.