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U.N.'s Philip Alston: questioning Saudi membership "oversimplifies, stigmatizes, distracts"

U.N. defends election of Saudi Arabia to rights council

By UN Watch ——--June 9, 2017

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GENEVA, The U.N. today said that questioning Saudi Arabia’s membership on the Human Rights Council is a “distraction,” a “gross oversimplification,” and an “attempt to stigmatize.” This was the response of Philip Alston, a U.N. Human Rights Council expert who presented a report today on Saudi Arabia, to a question (see text below, video here) posed in the plenary of the 47-nation body by Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights group. Alston, a prominent NYU scholar who serves as the U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty, said that “with countries like Saudi Arabia” what is needed is “engagement.”
He did not address Neuer’s second question about Saudi Arabia’s recent election to another body, the U.N.’s women rights commission, which sparked a firestorm in Belgium — its prime minister apologized for having helped elect the Saudi regime — as well as in Sweden, Ireland and Norway, countries suspected of also voting for the fundamentalist monarchy. “Mr. Alston may wish to read the U.N.'s own rules,” said Neuer, “because the founding charter of the human rights council expressly requires that members uphold the highest standards of human rights, provides that candidates compete in elections based on their record on human rights, and contemplates removing gross violators. The council was never designed to be a center for rehabilitating criminals.”

Testimony to UNHRC by UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, June 8, 2017:

Mr. President, we thank the Special Rapporteur for his report on Saudi Arabia, which documents the monarchy’s gross and systematic violation of women’s rights. Professor Alston, we have only one question for you today. But first we wish to cite some of the evidence in your report. Saudi Arabia, as you note at paragraph 41, ranks among the world’s worst violators of gender equality.
Saudi Arabia, as you note at paragraph 45, is the only country in the world where women are prohibited from driving. In 2014, Loujain al-Hathloul, a Saudi women’s rights activist, was jailed for 73 days. What was her crime? The crime of driving while being a woman. This Sunday, as BBC reported, she was arrested again. In Saudi Arabia, as you note at paragraph 46, public sector employment is segregated, and confined to limited posts. There are no female judges, no female prosecutors. In Saudi Arabia, as you note at paragraph 48, there is little space for women to participate in public policymaking. No organizations are allowed to work on women’s rights, or indeed to work on human rights at all. Indeed, at footnote 45, you note that Saudi Arabia jailed one of its most prominent women’s rights activists, Samar Badawi. Her brother, human rights activist Raif Badawi, is languishing in prison on a 10-year sentence. In Saudi Arabia, there is an online campaign to end its oppressive system requiring women to have male guardians to travel, marry, work or get health care. These restrictions last from birth until death. In the view of the Saudi state, women are permanent legal minors. Professor Alston, in light of the above, do you believe it was appropriate for the United Nations to elect Saudi Arabia to its Commission on the Status of Women, the principal UN agency on gender equality and the empowerment of women? Do you believe Saudi Arabia is qualified to be an e member of this Council?

Response by U.N. Human Rights Council expert Philip Alston:

I was asked by an NGO whether Saudi Arabia should be a member of this council. That’s not a question for me to answer, but I have to say that I think such questions are a distraction and a gross oversimplification and most unhelpful. I think what we need is to ensure engagement with countries like Saudi Arabia. The situation of women, the situation of other groups remains well behind the standards that we can expect, but they will only be improved through engagement and not through attempts to stigmatize.

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UN Watch——

UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information (DPI).

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