BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

17/05/2007

UN rejects Belarus's bid to join Human Rights Council

AFP

The UN General Assembly voted here Thursday to reject a bid by Belarus, viewed as a notorious human rights abuser, to join the Human Rights council, a move hailed by rights campaigners and the United States.

Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa of Bahrain, the president of the 192-member Assembly, announced that Angola, South Africa, Madagascar, Egypt, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Qatar, Slovenia, Bosnia, Nicaragua, Bolivia, the Netherlands and Italy were selected to join the world body's top human rights panel.

Sixteen countries were in contention for the 14 seats being allocated on a regional geographical basis.

The most closely watched contest was the three-way race for the two seats up for grabs in the East European Group.

Slovenia was elected with 188 votes in the first round while Bosnia edged Belarus 112 to 72 in the second.

"I think it is an enormously important moment," Steve Crawshaw, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch, told AFP after the vote. "Belarus has an appalling track record on human rights and yet until very recently it seemed confident that it could be voted to the world's leading human rights body."

"That would have been an insult to human rights victims everywhere," he added. "The very clear defeat for Belarus today is important in itself but I hope it will also send a message to abusive governments around the world that they should not be seeking membership of the human rights council in the future."

US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad also hailed Bosnia's election.

"I was particularly heartened by the election of Bosnia...This was the right decision for the General Assembly," the US envoy said. "We were particularly concerned by Belarus. Some have called it the last dictatorship in Europe."

To be elected to the 47-member Geneva-based Council , a member had to be approved individually and directly by a majority (at least 97) of the members of the General Assembly, in a secret ballot.

Each candidate was evaluated based on criteria such as political rights and political freedoms, freedom of the press and human rights promotion at the UN.

Several human rights groups had appealed to the Assembly to reject Belarus's bid, citing its "appalling rights record and consistent failure to cooperate with the UN."

Similar concerns had been echoed by a range of regional and international organizations, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Council of Europe, and the European Commission.

UN Watch and Freedom House, two non-governmental organizations groups that also champion human rights worldwide, had singled out not only Belarus and Egypt but also Angola and Qatar as "authoritarian regimes with negative UN voting records" that are "not qualified to be members (of the council) under the applicable standards."

"Clearly a number of the governments which did get elected have dubious rights records, to put mildly," said Crawshaw, referring specifically to Egypt.

The Council's 47 seats are distributed among the UN's five regional groups as follows: 13 for Africa, 13 for Asia, six for Eastern Europe, eight for Latin America and the Caribbean, and seven for the Western European and Others Group.

The panel was created last year under an assembly resolution specifying that "members elected to the council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights" and will be subject to periodic review.

Elevated to the status of a subsidiary body of the General Assembly, the council replaced the discredited the 53-member Human Rights Commission, which was an independent body, as part of UN reforms.

Membership is limited to two consecutive terms, and any council member may be suspended by a two-thirds vote of the assembly.

Source:

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/UN_rejects_Belarus_s_bid_to_join_Hu_05172007.html