BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

21/05/2007

UN Human Rights Council Elections Small Victory for Global Human Rights

Freedom House welcomes the vote by the United Nations General Assembly to elect Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina for the two open seats for Eastern European States in yesterday's election to the UN Human Rights Council. Belarus, the third candidate for the East Europe vacancies, was defeated in a tight race following a vigorous campaign by numerous human rights organizations and countries opposed to the candidacy of a country with one of the world's most abysmal human rights records.

The second annual elections to the UN Human Rights Council determined one-third of the Council's membership. Each regional group was apportioned a specific number of seats and in only two of the regional groups-"Western European and Other States" and "Eastern European States"-did the number of countries stepping forward to run exceed the number of available seats. The bid for membership by Bosnia and Herzegovina was submitted only a week before the election and came largely as a result of exhortations from human rights organizations and countries concerned that the lack of competition in the Eastern European group would mean a sure victory for Belarus. The Council already consists of egregious human rights abusers like Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China.

"The defeat of Belarus during the elections to the Human Rights Council keeps some hope alive that the mandate of the Council to uphold and defend human rights is still taken seriously by a majority of members of the UN General Assembly," said Freedom House Executive Director Jennifer Windsor. "Overall, however, the democratic character of the Council did not improve in the course of this year's elections. And it remains to be seen whether the Council will do a better job in addressing the most pressing human rights issues in its second year than it did in its first. But the General Assembly has at least avoided further discredit by excluding one of the world's most repressive regimes within its membership."

In other regional groups, Italy and the Netherlands won the only other contested seats over Denmark for the Western Europe and Other States group. All three countries are rated Free by Freedom House and are highly qualified for membership according to their domestic human rights records and voting patterns on past Council resolutions. Among the African states, Angola, Egypt, Madagascar, and South Africa won seats. Angola and Egypt are both rated Not Free and do not respect basic human rights. Madagascar is ranked Partly Free and South Africa is ranked Free, but both countries have poor records on past UN votes to protect human rights.

Within the Asian states, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Qatar were elected. India and Indonesia are both ranked Free, the Philippines is Partly Free and Qatar is Not Free. All four countries have poor UN voting records on human rights issues. Nicaragua and Bolivia were elected to fill the two available seats in the Latin American and Caribbean States. Both are ranked as Partly Free and both have overall positive records of protecting human rights through UN votes.

Freedom House rankings for all UN Human Rights Council member countries can be found in Freedom in the World 2007.

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