<html><body>The U.N. Human Rights Commission: Can It Be Rescued? March 31, 2004 Unedited transcript prepared from a tape recording <TABLE width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> 10:15 a.m.</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="75%" colSpan=2> Registration</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> 10:30</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> Speakers:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%"> Lorne W. Craner, U.S. Department of State Jeannie Henderson, Embassy of Australia Alison Kelly, Embassy of Ireland Tom Malinowski, Human Rights Watch</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> Moderator:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%"> Joshua Muravchik, AEI</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> Noon</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="75%" colSpan=2> Adjournment</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> Proceedings: MR. MURAVCHIK: The U.N. Human Rights Commission is holding its 60th meeting in Geneva this month, and the month that starts tomorrow. It's usually a six-week session, approximately. This one began in mid-March and will run through most of April. The U.N., since its founding, had been less than its founders had hoped in terms of its ability to be a kind of military power that would enforce the peace of the world, but even with that inability, there was still the hope that the U.N. could be a kind of moral beacon that would shine a light of inspiration and a light of shame. And the epicenter of those hopes for the moral role of the U.N. is to be found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the U.N. Human Rights Commission. And yet, throughout most of its history the commission has been something of a disappointment. We included in the packets a little article of mine from a year or so ago, or two years ago, that reported on the session of the commission in 2002, which was the one year in its history that the United States was not a member, and that was a particularly difficult year in the commission's history. Last year, there was also--the U.S. was back, and not only back, but back in spades, so to speak, because our delegation there was led by our former chief ambassador to the U.N., Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who has graced us this morning with her presence. But there was the difficulty last year that the commission was chaired by Libya, which is a state not among the most punctilious in respect for human rights. This year, things are much better in that regard, the chairmanship having passed from Libya to Australia. And I hope that a big part of what we can talk about this morning is whether there is the possibility, particularly by the means of the cooperative effort of the democracies, to raise the standard of performance of the commission from the disappointing level that it had been at for many years. We're very fortunate to have a wonderful panel to discuss that this morning. I'm not going to give you their biographical details in presenting them, because you have a sheet with--and I take it you can all read and don't want me to read to you. So I'm not going to--I intend no discourtesy to our panelists, but I'm not going to repeat their credentials, all of which are very impressive. But we're going to begin with Jeannie Henderson of the Embassy of Australia, who, because they are the chair of the commission, is going to give us a kind of tour de raison of what's going on in Geneva, and then we're going to turn to the assistant secretary of state for human rights, an old friend of AEI, Lorne Craner, and get the American view on this. And then we will turn the floor to Alison Kelly of the Embassy of Ireland. Ireland is at this moment occupying the presidency of the EU, so she will be speaking to us not only on behalf of her own country, but on behalf of the EU in some sense--is that fair to say? And having heard from all of those government representatives, we then turn the floor over to one of Washington's most important human rights advocates from a nongovernmental point of view, Tom Malinowski. And I start by thanking all four of you for agreeing to do this. Without more ado, let me give you the floor, Jeannie. MS. HENDERSON: Thanks, Josh. I'm very honored to participate in today's panel with the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, alongside the representatives of the president of the EU and one of America's most active human rights organizations. With Australia in the chair of the 60th Commission of Human Rights, I've been asked to provide a scene-setter for today's discussions. I will then speak about some ways in which Australia wants to see this commission and future commissions achieve real improvements in human rights. I'd like to start by saying that Australia is very proud to be chairing, for the first time, the Commission of Human Rights. We've entrusted this role to Ambassador Mike Smith, our permanent representative in Geneva. We're very conscious of the responsibilities that this entails. Ambassador Smith has been working assiduously to ensure that this is a productive session. One way in which he's doing this is through running a tight ship. He is strictly enforcing speaking limits at the commission and starting times of the meetings. This may seem like a small thing, but for anyone who has been present during the commission, they will understand the significance of it. The purpose, of course, is to avoid plustering [?] of important votes in the last day or two of the commission. But it also serves to set a business-like tone for the work of the commission, reminding delegations that, in the words of Ambassador Smith, the commission can produce a body of work that does genuinely promote and protect human rights everywhere and shows that this is an institution which is worthwhile. Unfortunately, some further improvements to the working methods of the commission were disrupted by the Africa Group and Cuba. However, the plenary did manage to adopt unanimously speaking time limits for statements. Ambassador Smith is also determined to ensure that the delegations maintain a degree of civility in the debates. Quoting the late Sergio Vieira de Melo, he told the opening session that words which have no purpose but to shock or offend have no place in the chambers. And he has pulled out delegations who have failed to adhere to this standard. We are now in the third week of the commission. Highlights of the first week included the attendance of over 100 dignitaries at the high-level segment. Many of their statements referred to the impact of terrorism on human rights in the wake of the tragic bombings in Madrid. A second highlight was the Swiss initiative on violence against women. This initiative brought together female ministers attending CHR, including the Australian parliamentary secretary to the minister for foreign affairs, Mrs. Chris Gallas, MP. Week two of the commission was dominated by the special sitting on the human rights situation following the assassination of Sheikh Yassin. This session was held on the 24th of March. The resolution which it produced was adopted, with 31 votes in favor; two against-- Australia and the United States; and 18 abstentions. Australia was one of the many countries to deliver a statement in which we emphasized the unbalanced treatment of Israel at the United Nations and the failure of the resolution to recognize the Hammas role in terror. As expected, discussions on the country situations under Item 9 were again heated at CHR 60, with many countries from the developing world taking the view that critical statements on the part of developed countries were not acceptable. To give you some of the flavor of this, the Chinese linked the U.S. draft resolution on China to the U.S. elections; Cuba accused the U.S. of human rights abuses in Guantanamo Bay; Japan and the DPRK had a heated exchange of words on the abduction of foreign nationals; and Australia's statement on the deteriorating human rights situation in Zimbabwe was met with not one, but two extremely provocative rights of reply. On a more positive note, the interactive dialogues between the commission and the special rapporteurs, held under Item 9, were useful in our assessment. The rapporteurs on Cuba, Iraq, and Burma delivered their reports and participated in a dialogue with the commission. In discussion under Item 9, some delegations suggested that this item should be reformulated or even dropped, with country situation only being discussed in the context of Item 19, which focuses on technical assistance. However, it is Australia's view that Item 9 is core work of the commission. This week the commission will see further interactive dialogues with special rapporteurs. On the 1st of April, Australia will host a side event entitled, "Getting Real on Human Rights." Panelists include Roland Rich, the director of the Center for Democratic Institutions in Australia; Chris Sidoti, from the International Service for Human Rights; and Paul Hunt, who is the special rapporteur on the right to health. And then, of course, next week in this session, voting will begin. I would now like to move on to some proposals put by the Australian chair and supported by our delegation for making the commission work better. Ambassador Smith in his opening remarks noted that, in its early days, the commission's energies were directed at drafting, adopting, and promulgating international human rights standards. More recently, although there is still work to be done on standards setting, the focus is shifting to improving the monitoring, implementation, and effectiveness of existing standards. In that context, Australia has, since April 2001, been encouraging reform of the treaty body system. We want to improve committees' capacities to oversee and advise states on the implementation of their obligation under core treaties. Australia has hosted three workshops in Geneva on this subject attended by the United States and many EU countries. In accordance with the secretary general's reform programs and as a result of our efforts, the treaty bodies are now coordinating amongst themselves better. They are more consistent in their approach to issues and they are more focused in their concluding observations. Further reform, however, is needed in bringing more transparency and consistency to the process of selecting special rapporteurs. This is about making the commission's traditional work better. Ambassador Smith also highlighted the challenge laid down by Sergio Vieira de Melo in the closing of the 59th session; that is, for the Office of the High Commissioner to have a greater impact on the ground in countries around the world who are challenged with human rights. This is no easy proposition. What the commission does most comfortably is to debate and adopt resolutions, but these do not automatically have an impact outside Geneva. That requires appropriate wording to encourage action in countries; it requires strong and consistent advocacy; and most of all, it demands effective mechanisms to ensure that commitments are implemented. Australia firmly believes that good governance, that is, strong civil institutions, effective court and justice systems, and accountability and transparency are critical to the protection of both economic, social, and cultural rights, and of civil and political rights. I would like to provide a poignant and current example of this from our immediate neighborhood. In the Solomon Islands in 2003, lawlessness was rife, government institutions and the legal system had ceased to function, corruption was widespread, and vital services had stalled. In short, a small number of militants had terrorized a population and brought a country to its knees. Now the situation has been turned around through a regional assistance mission to the Solomon Islands, RAMSI, led by Australia. The assistance is being provided by the Countries of the Pacific Islands Forum at the request of the Solomon Islands government. In the eight months since its deployment, RAMSI has reestablished law and order, stabilized the budget, and begun to address issues of governance and economic reform. The population can now live in safety. And as it moves forward, RAMSI will forge ahead with long-term processes of rebuilding institutions, restoring services to the community, and bolstering civil society and NGOs. Our experience with RAMSI has reinforced our conviction that good governance is a foundation stone of a free society. Second priority for Australia is ensuring strong national human rights institutions. In his presentation to the opening session, Ambassador Smith called for the commission to give more prominence to the role of national human rights institutions in promoting international human rights standards and in monitoring country situations. This could be done through increased collaboration with these institutions at the commission and also through technical programs by the Office of the High Commissioner. The commission, of course, has its own mechanisms, the various special procedures to monitor and report on human rights situations both in specific countries and thematically. While these do valuable work, the special procedures cannot hope to substitute for effective, independent, and properly resourced national human rights bodies. To reflect these two priorities, Australia sponsored a resolution on good governance and a resolution on national human rights institutions. In conclusion, I would like to thank the American Enterprise Institute for this timely initiative in convening the discussion. I think we all know that the wheels of the U.N. turn slowly, and I'm sorry to say that our experience as chair of the CHR has merely reinforced this conviction. However, Australia has put forward some important priorities, and we look forward to working, particularly with our friends in the Western Group, towards better and more real outcomes. Thank you. MR. MURAVCHIK: Jeannie, I think you've gotten us off to a fine start. Lorne? MR. CRANER: Josh, thank you for the opportunity to be here today and thank you for holding these sessions on the Commission on Human Rights. In looking at the title, whether or not the U.N. Human Rights Commission can be rescued, we went through this debate within the administration the year we got kicked off the commission. And there were some who said that the thing had descended so far that it was not worth rejoining. There were others who noted that it was really the only multilateral body charged with advancing human rights, and as such it was useful mechanism for us to be engaged in. Nobody should underestimate the task of trying to rescue the CHR. Last year, I likened it to a family restaurant where you could discuss civilly such issues, that it had become a biker bar, essentially, by virtue of the membership, and that we're trying to turn it back into a nice family restaurant where you can discuss such issues. But it took many years for it to get to its present sad state, and I think it's going to take many years to bring it out of that. Jeannie covered some of the issues that we all agree on that we would like to see happen at the commission. The rapporteurs, I think, are especially important. Sergio de Melo--I think I can say this now--told me there were too many rapporteurs and they are of varying quality, was the way he put it. I think at that point we had about 31 rapporteurs for different issues. Another issue that Jeannie touched on was trying to take the commission from being a place where you go to have resolutions about countries--which, by the way, we firmly believe in; there are some people who say let's not have resolutions aimed at particular countries, and we disagree very much with that. But in addition, where countries want to move forward and improve themselves, we would like to see the capabilities of the Commissioner's Office enhanced. And we were very happy to see Louise Arbor taking the job over there, to succeed de Melo. I spent a lot of time with folks in that office going through some of their programs of technical assistance, and I think they're very, very worthwhile, and we would like to see more of them. The only thing I would add to what Jeannie said on the improvement side of the ledger is seeing an improvement in the membership of the commission. If you trace the descent of the commission to its present sad state, it begins when more and more China-, Cuba-, Iran-type countries start getting on the commission. I'm not among those who think that the commission ought to be composed purely of pure democracies. I think there's a place for a country like China, but I don't think it's a place of about 40 percent of the membership. And right now, those kind of countries occupy about 40 percent of the seats. There was a slight improvement last year. A number of what I would think of as budding democracies came aboard and countries like Vietnam and Venezuela departed. But clearly, we want to see the membership continue to improve. As you all know, we in the U.S. are offering a number of resolutions this year. I think the one that made the most news was on China, where we felt that against a backdrop of declining human rights in China issues that we had had in our own dialogue with China were not fulfilled, the commitments were not fulfilled. We're strongly supporting the Cuba resolution that a number of Latin American countries are going to put forth. This will be the third time that Latin countries have moved forward with a Cuba resolution. We'll be putting forth a Belarus resolution. The Europeans, we will strongly support their resolution on North Korea and their resolution on Turkmenistan. Another issue we're spending a lot of time on is something else that Jeannie touched on, which is the kind of victimization of Israel at this annual session. I always note that North Korea, which I think probably has the worst human rights record in the world, didn't get its own resolution until last year, but for many years there have been four, five, six, seven, eight resolutions aimed exclusively at Israel. And obviously, something is very, very wrong with that. So in conclusion, we believe that the commission can be changed. We spent a lot of effort on that last year. We were very happy that Ambassador Kirkpatrick was our leader last year. One of her students--I count myself as one of her students as well, but one of her students, Rich Williamson, is the leader of our delegation this year, and he's carrying forth the fine tradition that was started last year of sticking up for improvements at the commission but working within the commission to try and improve it. Thank you, Josh. MR. MURAVCHIK: Thank you, Lorne. Alison? MS. KELLY: Thank you very much, Josh, for organizing this event today. And may I say that it's quite difficult to disagree with what Jeannie and Lorne have said on the overall question of our priorities in relation to the current session of the commission and to making it work. I mean, I think it is an area in which we have very close cooperation within the Western Group and where we work very well together. And as presidency, may I pay tribute to Australia for what it has done at this year's session, because we think it's got off to a better start than it could have had, and it's due in large part to Ambassador Smith and to the efforts that you have put into making it work. Looking back at this a little bit historically, the first and perhaps greatest achievement of the commission, in 1947, was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which created across cultures, religions, political philosophies, and nations a common understanding of what constitutes the rights of man. Perhaps it's useful to remember that, much like the real world, the commission has evolved significantly over the six decades since then. As originally conceived, it essentially fulfilled an academic function of discussing human rights in abstract legal terms and evolving new universal standards, starting with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Only gradually did it evolve a mandate to consider the human rights situations in individual countries, a mandate that today continues to be contested, as Lorne has pointed out. In 1947, U.N. membership was a fraction of its present number. As colonies gradually acquired their independence and acceded to membership, they brought with them their political concerns, their cultural outlooks, their national priorities, and their problems. The early 1990s brought with it the end of the Soviet Union and the return of democracy to Europe. It also saw a relatively brief period where Western democracy wielded significantly greater influence than their absolute numbers warranted. The heyday of that influence was probably in 1993, when the World Conference on Human Rights was held in Vienna. Since then, a number of countries have increasingly questioned how the commission operates, what they see as its emphasis on country situations and civil and political rights, what they see as its unwillingness to address their problems and their priorities. We in the European Union do not share these views. Far from it. But we recognize that we need to find ways to work around them. We see the need to form alliances on issues of interest to ourselves, which normally entails a willingness to address to the best of our abilities the concerns of those whose support we need. This is a process familiar to anyone working in a diplomatic or legislative framework, and it is indeed a central feature of most democratic systems. Josh has asked how the democracies can cooperate to improve the commission. And this is, of course, the core question. There are now more democracies around the world than at any time in the past. Most of Europe and the Americas are democratic, as are large parts of Africa and much of Asia. There should be significant potential for closer cooperation between them, and we need to harness the potential to ensure that the commission can function effectively as the primary U.N. and multilateral body for the promotion and protection of human rights. But we should not assume, in our view, that all democracies share the same priorities, nor that they approach the protection of human rights in the same way. And if we are to harness that potential, we need to recognize and respect this diversity of approach. Like the United States, the European Union is proud of the core values on which it is founded. It describes itself as a community of values, a union based on our commitment to the rule of law, human rights, and fundamental freedoms. Founded to put an end to conflict in Europe, EU member states have long been convinced that the promotion of universal human rights values and norms is essential in order to prevent conflict and build a safer world. Amongst the tasks which we're undertaking during our presidency, few will be more onerous, frustrating, and hopefully at times rewarding than the coordination and presentation of EU positions during the current session of the commission. However, we can be effective only when we can get sufficient support for our initiatives from other commission members, and in recent years we have found this increasingly difficult to secure their support. This is in part due to the election to the commission of persistent human rights violators whose influence is used to frustrate action rather than to promote rights. But it is in part also because we have not always been able to persuade or convince moderate states, many of them practicing democracies, to support us on the difficult issues. Against this general background, let me move on to look at some of the issues and dilemmas that face us in our participation in the commission and where we need to do better. The main issues can be summed up in single words--relevance, atmosphere, selectivity, balance, and efficiency, all of which we see as interconnected. On the relevance point, at times there's a distinct air of unreality about the debates in Geneva. We're discussing the cruelest of human rights violations and the rawest of human suffering in the cocooned atmosphere of the Geneva conference halls. The formal output of the session is a mountain of resolutions and decisions whose language is often opaque and repetitive. It is tempting to ask what purpose this serves. Are we just producing a text to sit on a shelf? Who is listening? What operational follow-up will there be? Yet there is no doubt that country resolutions in particular are seen by the countries concerned as strong statements of international criticism which places them in an unfavorable spotlight. Equally, human rights defenders see them as vindication of their stances, as proof that they are not forgotten, that their efforts are not in vain. No wonder, then, that the countries concerned go to great lengths to avoid these resolutions. There are also highly practical issues that we need to address-- [sound loss]. Josh, am I--? MR. MURAVCHIK: [Off mike, inaudible.] MS. KELLY: Okay. It receives only about 2 percent of the U.N.'s regular budget, with the rest of its funds coming from voluntary contributions. For want of funds, a huge proportion of staff are on very short-term contracts, which is a major cause of low morale. Yet, it still manages to provide valuable assistance to countries that wish to improve their human rights record. And the special rapporteurs and other experts do furnish credible and reliable evidence of human rights violations around the world. On the atmosphere point, all of us are familiar with the tensions which characterize the commission's work, particularly the north-south divide on sensitive issues. In broad terms, the developing world tends to see itself as being lectured and patronized by the developed world. There is a perception of the Western countries taking on the role of global moral policemen imposing their perspectives, their values, their standards on developing countries whose history, traditions, standards, and material circumstances are radically different. For their part, the Western countries reject such a characterization. They emphasize that the standards they are applying and the values they are projecting are universal ones accepted as such in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1993 Vienna Declaration. Increasing efforts have been made over the past few years to address this divide, but it still requires more effort, more sensitivity, and more courage if these divisions are to be put behind us. Selectivity is, understandably and rightly, a recurring issue in every attempt to assess the commission's work. The questions are always the same: What is desirable and what is possible? What are the facts and what is politically achievable? It ultimately comes down to a judgment in each particular situation--what approach is most likely to help those whose human rights are being violated. In some cases, constructive engagement may be the way forward. In other cases, clear and public criticism of governance may be the most effective and even the only option. In summary, I would say this: It is not a question of selectivity in standards--they are universal--but selectivity in choosing the approach best calculated to ensure their implementation. There are many kinds of balance that come into play at the commission, but the one I want to highlight here is the balance between, on the one hand, civil and political rights, and, on the other hand, economic and social rights. This is, of course, very much linked to the earlier issue I touched on of relationships between developed and developing countries. There is undoubtedly a widespread feeling among developing countries that the developed world gives a disproportionate emphasis to civil and political rights at the expense of economic and social rights. However, while it is statistically the case that a far greater portion of text and time is allocated to political and civil rights, it is also the case that the economic and social agenda is dealt with in a range of U.N. fora, whereas if civil and political rights are not adequately dealt with in CHR, they may not be dealt with properly at all. On the efficiency point, there is no doubt that there are inefficiencies and that we need a much better discipline to underpin a more effective and focused approach to our work. Here again there are difficulties--for example, our arguments about prioritization of items--but, as I have said, we very much welcome the steps to address this that have been taken this year. Before concluding, I would like to say a word about the work of NGOs at the commission sessions. NGOs are a vital presence. They bring an enormous quantity of information. They are our reality check, often our conscience. The emergence of a healthy NGO sector in an increasing number of developing countries is an extremely encouraging development. The first and most crucial layer of human rights protection is at the local and national level, and properly functioning national mechanisms offer the best hope of sustainable human rights protection. Anything we can do to foster this trend is, to my mind, extremely worthwhile. So how to sum it all up. Despite all the inadequacies and frustrations, the work done at the Commission on Human Rights is immensely important. And picking up what Josh said at the outset, shining a light into dark corners is valuable in itself. It brings comfort and hope, and once the light has been shone, it becomes that much harder for the international community to walk away from what they have seen. But delivering on the expectations raised is the far greater challenge and we must press on to the best of our ability in trying to meet it. Thank you. MR. MURAVCHIK: Thank you, Alison. And Tom, I hope you won't let Alison's kind words about NGOs deter you from raising a little hell here. MR. MALINOWSKI: What kind words? No. Thank you, and I appreciate it. And thank you, Josh. Let me try to touch on some of the issues that the other speakers have raised. Just about everything has been covered. I have the same perspective on some issues, maybe a slightly different one on others. First of all, I totally agree the commission is in a bad state. I think it's pretty much always been in a bad state, apart from a brief glimmer of hope in the early to mid-1990s, which it was still in kind of a bad state but looking up. So there wasn't a golden period of the Human Rights Commission, a period of grace from which it's fallen. This has always been with us. But despite that, I think what the commission does, or at least what it's meant to do, is profoundly important for the reasons that Alison mentioned. Naming and shaming human rights violators is the foundation of human rights work, whether you're an NGO or a government. And anyone who has spoken to dissidents in any part of the world who struggle and campaign for democracy and human rights knows that they believe this is profoundly valuable to them. It's so important to folks like that to know that they are not forgotten, that they are being listened to, and that the world is on their side. And it matters to governments as well. As cynical as most dictatorships are, I don't know a single one that doesn't care on some level about its reputation, which is why even governments like North Korea go to great lengths to try to deny and hide their human rights abuses. They know on some level that it's a problem for them when the rest of the world shines that spotlight. And it's especially important when the spotlight comes not just from one human rights group or one country, like the United States, but from a collective, a group of countries that represent the entire world community. And the commission has from time to time fulfilled this purpose, despite its inherent weaknesses. It has managed to speak out on East Timor, on Serbia, Sudan, Turkmenistan most recently. For two years running in the late '90s, it condemned Russian human rights violations in Chechnya, issued, really, the first international statement of concern about human rights in North Korea. In some situations, the commission helps us sort of set the parameters for what an acceptable resolution of a human rights crisis might be, for example, the resolutions on Burma, which have laid down sort of the minimum international requirements for what we want to see happen there. And even resolutions that don't pass, like the ones on China, have had some impact. They've put pressure on Beijing to release prisoners, accept visits by U.N. human rights rapporteurs, sign human rights treaties. It's leverage that can be used. And as Alison mentioned, if all this wasn't true, human rights violators like Libya, Sudan, and China would try so hard to get onto the commission and to hijack its work. And that is my simple answer to anyone who says the United States ought to get off the Human Rights Commission. This body matters to the bad guys, and so by definition it ought to matter to us. If we stop caring, they win. And in fact, I would say if the United States lost interest in this commission and allowed itself to get off, there would be a big champagne party in Geneva, and Libya and China would be toasting their success. And we don't want to see that. So the real challenge is how to make it work better more often, accepting that it's never going to be perfect because it is a universal body. Part of the problem, as others including Lorne mentioned, is the membership--which isn't easily fixed, because you just can't have a rule that a U.N. body can only have nice countries on it. We've suggested one rule that we think does make sense, and that is that membership on the commission should be limited to those countries that at least cooperate with the commission's own instruments, that, for example, allow U.N. human rights rapporteurs to visit their territory. That seems to us to be logical and would be a good way of encouraging countries to cooperate with the commission and keeping some of the bad guys off. Again, that's hard to do. In the meantime, you know, what's needed is just good diplomacy, working with regional groups to convince them to elect better members and, perhaps most important, convincing democracies in regions like Africa to stand for election, and the Community of Democracies, which the United States is a part of, is a useful vehicle for that. But membership isn't the only problem. As Lorne mentioned, it's about 40 percent Hell's Angels right now. And that's bad, but that means that it's 60 percent family values. And if it's 60 percent countries that are basically democratic and that ought to stand for the promotion of human rights and democracy beyond their borders, and if those countries voted according to those principles, we wouldn't have a problem. We'd win every single resolution. But of course we don't. So I think the biggest problem is the inability of that 60 percent to work together well. You know, there's a term of art at the Human Rights Commission. People refer to the "like-minded group." And when they refer to the like-minded group, they refer to Libya and China and Cuba and those guys. No one uses "like-minded group" to refer to the United States and the United Kingdom and Australia. And that's a problem that has to be fixed. And I don't agree, Alison, although you're a diplomat and you have to say so, that the Western group works really well together. It obviously doesn't, although there has been improvement, I think, in the last couple of years. What we get, as an NGO on the ground, is a lot of cynicism expressed by diplomats from both sides. EU diplomats come to us and blame the Americans for everything that goes wrong; American diplomats come to us and blame the Europeans for everything that goes wrong. And there's a lot of this, you know, mutually assured cynicism. And there are some reasons for both sides to be cynical about each other. I mean, the Europeans, although they sponsored some country resolutions, on tough cases like China have tended to stay on the sidelines. Some European countries have been increasingly blase--the use of the French word is not coincidental--about the whole idea of naming and shaming individual countries at the commission. And there's sort of a view that some countries like to take the contracts while the United States takes the heat on big issues like China. But that isn't to say that the Europeans are the only ones to blame. I think the United States also deserves some share of criticism for what's gone on. Even on the country resolutions, where the United States has more often been on the lead, it sometimes has shied away. It's the EU that sponsored these resolutions on Russia in Chechnya, for example. And the reason, in my view, why we haven't been able to pass them in the last couple of years is that the United States has not been willing to sponsor those resolutions--and you can figure out why. Even on China, where the United States has been our hero and our champion, it's jumped into the game oftentimes too late to make a meaningful difference in terms of gathering votes at the commission. And then there are other very sensitive issues that have divided the Western Group. Partly it's sort of ham-handed diplomacy on the U.S. part over the years--refusing to compromise on very trivial language and symbolic resolutions on economic and social rights that they really ought to just not care so much about; alienating allies on larger human rights issues; human rights treaties that the United States is reluctant to sign up to--not just opposing but really aggressively campaigning against the International Criminal Court to the extent of actually imposing sanctions on European allies that support the treaty. And then there are the big controversies revolving around the war on terror and the authorities that the Bush administration has claimed for itself. Now, I don't care if Cuba cynically and hypocritically attacks the United States on Guantanamo, but I do care when dissidents, for example, in the Arab world come to me and say what is your country doing detaining people indefinitely without charge, without trial? Don't you see how this hurts your credibility and your image when you go to places like the Human Rights Commission and criticize us? Just a couple of weeks ago, our homeland security czar, Tom Ridge, was in Singapore, and he praised the internal security acts in Singapore and Malaysia that are used not just to lock up terrorists, but to lock up political dissidents, with the Singaporean government right there saying, yes, we agree and we urge Australia to adopt a similar act. And there's a real contradiction when one part of our government does that and then the State Department, in Lorne's fine shop, continues to put out reports criticizing the internal security acts in these countries. And these contradictions, again, tend to contribute to the sense of cynicism that's expressed about U.S. efforts at the commission. And then there are even bigger problems that are beyond our capacity here to discuss, bigger problems in the relationships among the Western Group, whether it's Iraq or something else. And, you know, I only bring those up because I just think realistically we can't separate the politics of the commission from the politics of the transatlantic relationship as a whole, or the trans-Pacific relationship. These things are fundamentally related. But I think it is important to remember what the commission reminds us, and that is that it really is vital for the United States and for allies that share its basic fundamental democratic values to get along and to work together. Because at this commission we see so starkly the consequences of a failure to get along. The consequences when the democracies of the world fail to unite is that the bad guys win--Cuba wins, Iran wins, Iraq used to win, Sudan wins. And that's something none of us should want to see and all of us should want to fix. Thank you. MR. MURAVCHIK: Thank you, Tom. Before I open it to the floor, I want to ask if any of the panelists want to say anything in response to anything that any of the other panelists have said. If not--we have a mike here. If I call on you, if you would, wait till the mike reaches you and then begin by introducing yourself, please. QUESTION: [Inaudible], Freedom Alliance. Freedom House, in its most recent report, identified about 47 countries representing about 2 billion people [inaudible] that live under oppression. Some of the world's worst human rights abusers are within that group. Yet, about half that number sit on the Human Rights Commission. And they get there through a regionalization concept. Are we doing anything to correct that problem within the U.N. system? Because as long as Cuba and Zimbabwe sit on the commission, we're going to have nothing but a pain in the neck. MR. CRANER: We are trying to do something. There are two issues here. One is these regional groupings. We are, the WEOG group--that means Western European and Others Group--there's an Africa Group, an Asia Group that includes the Middle East, the GRULAC is the Latin group. What we're doing is going to countries within the groupings and saying why is it, for example, that a country that is not democratic in Eastern Europe is on the commission and you're not? Romania, why aren't you on the commission? None of the Baltic States are on the commission. Mongolia and East Timor, two recent sterling examples of democracies, are not on the commission as part of the Asia Group. But where you find the most problems here is --[tape flip]-- 17 of the 50 [inaudible] countries on the commission are not democratic; of the 17, a dozen come from Africa. The other five are spread around the world. So we have been trying, not with much success so far, to go to African countries to note that 14 countries on the African continent are considered democracies, but almost none of them are on the commission. So that is what I would say is at the center of the problem. We've not had much success there. We have had success in other regional groupings, and I think you'll see that continue this year. But I would hate to get to the point where the only authoritarian countries on the commission were China and a lot of African countries. That's not good for Africa. We have been pointing out to them that in this era of method and talk about democratic development, and especially peer review, that nominating Libya as the chair of the Human Rights Commission wasn't really consistent, or wasn't the kind of peer review we hope to see if we're going to be giving billions of dollars for Africa's democratic development. But so far, they've been allowed to shame us. MR. MURAVCHIK: Jeane? QUESTION: Jeane Kirkpatrick. I was just going to ask whether we had made an effort in advance of the sessions to encourage those democracies in Africa to present themselves as candidates for the Human Rights Commission in their vision [inaudible]. MR. CRANER: We have. To be honest, I think part of the problem in Africa is, if you're doing well both economy and politically, you get kicked around by the countries that aren't doing well. So there's a great intimidation factor for a Senegal or a Botswana or others to put themselves forth as good examples. That is something we're trying to encourage them to do, not only at the commission but also through things like the Millennium Challenge Account, where we're saying if you're making advances, we're going to help you even more. But it's a real challenge, especially within Africa, to get people to present themselves. QUESTION: Thank you very much. Alex [inaudible], U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I happen to have had the unusual privilege of serving in both State Department and within the European Union on human rights issues, so I've seen what it looks like from the inside on both sides. And I have to say, I agree with every single one of Tom's criticisms of where the U.S. and EU approach could be improved. In the spirit of AEI events, I'm making this a little provocative. But I also agree with the comments of all the panelists that if we don't get it right, we're really leaving the [inaudible] to the bad guys, and our record still is better than anybody else's. I would like to put back to Alison and to Lorne two questions, one of which is how can we do better to insulate our own human rights policy bodies within our own systems from extraneous political considerations influencing our approach to human rights situations in other countries. It is true, both sides are guilty of not pursuing purely on the human rights situation alone. And secondly, I'm disturbed about the comment that our action can only be effected if we got support for our initiatives. As Alison said, the commission shines a light in dark corners. And even if resolutions don't get passed, the very fact that they are raised and debated keeps the item on the agenda. And I've been worried in recent years by a tendency either to drop resolutions out of fear of failure--for example, Iran and Zimbabwe--or to start trading with the culprits--for example China and Iran--and say what if we have a dialogue, perhaps more progress--you know, we won't table a resolution if you show concrete progress. I'm not sure that's the right approach, either. So I wondered if you could comment on both of those. Thank you. MR. MURAVCHIK: Thank you. Alison? MS. KELLY: Well, I think we all agree that we have to do better to insulate our human rights policy from extraneous political issues. And I think that much of this comes from working together closely on them and establishing a critical mass. You know, that's the best I can say, because most of us--I mean, many issues come up, various lobby groups come in, various interests come in. And this is linked, actually, to what I would say to your second question, which is that it is right that a resolution, that raising the issue is important. But getting the votes and getting the resolution passed is a measurement of success, because otherwise why are you there looking for the votes and trying to get them? And there isn't any doubt that it's seen as success when the resolution fails. I mean, I would think back, for example, to some of the history on some of the Chechnya resolutions, which is a very critical resolution at the session every year. And there is no doubt that the measure of success for the Russian government in this has been the fact that the countries sponsoring the resolution have not always been able to get the votes to get it passed. MR. CRANER: On the issue of insulating human rights from other considerations, I think we have done that with some success over the past, I would say especially, two years. When I came into my job--I'm not a lawyer, and I didn't understand why we disagreed on some issues with the Europeans. And in the summer of '01, I made the nicest trip I'll ever have to Madrid, Berlin. Sort of when you do human rights you don't get to go to such capitals. But I went around and said what is it we disagree on? Let's make a list of what we disagree on with Europeans. And we did that. We came up, I think, with about 12 or 13 items. I brought the list back here to the States and took it down to my legal shop and said why do we disagree on these issues? There are some I understand that we're never going to get resolved, like ICC or the death penalty--we have it and they don't--but I said I don't understand some of these. There were five items where nobody could remember why we were still fighting over them. It had been so long and they were so arcane. So we got five off, and was told by my EU compatriots that the same five on their side nobody could remember why we were still fighting over them. The kind of middle five we have worked together very, very closely to try and find language that enables both sides to feel that they can vote for a resolution and satisfies it. And then we have the ones that are left over, like ICC and death penalty, et cetera. But what it's enabled us to do is, at Geneva, instead of us bickering with, of all people, the Europeans on human rights issues, we have been able to work much more closely together these past two years. It's not that we agree on everything, but we kind of agree that we'll, you know, if we're going to argue about these things, it's not going to be in Geneva. We can spend the rest of the year doing battle. But that places like China, the people in China and people in Zimbabwe, et cetera, really need our help, and certainly they are much worse human rights abusers than Belgium or France or Ireland or the United States. In terms of winning or losing the resolution, the Chinese told me a year ago, If you run a China resolution, you know you'll lose. And I said, And you know it doesn't matter to us if we lose, we'll still run it. And the point is that even if you--it is certainly the case that you run these things to win. And we began working last fall on the China resolution, going to different countries and saying if we ran this, what would your opinion be, because we wanted to get an early start. But the value, in many cases, of running a resolution even if you think you're going to lose, I think it still shines a light into a very dark corner. I think that's a good thing. I would say there are exceptions to that rule. For example, at the last General Assembly, by a wide margin, a resolution was passed on Iran. If you look at the membership of the commission, it being so bad, the chances are that an Iran resolution would not pass at CHR. So the question is, do you want to run a resolution at CHR that's going to lose, when you just won it big-time at the General Assembly? And in that particular case, I would say the right decision was made by Canada not to run it. But we're both running resolutions that haven't succeeded in some years. [Inaudible] Chechnya and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's never won. We're doing China, which has also never won. So there is certainly a value in trying to do resolutions even if you don't think you're going to win. MR. MURAVCHIK: I'd like to--there are a number of other hands, but I want to sort of follow up this question and ask for a little more. If there was a decision by the governments--that is, the American and the EU governments and Australian, but by the leading democracies--to spend some more political capital on the commission and to make a more concerted effort to cajole or pressure the other democracies to vote for the sensitive resolutions that name the egregious human rights violators, would we be able to succeed? MR. CRANER: I think you might be able to make that case. I mean, some of these resolutions have failed by one or two votes lately--Zimbabwe, Chechnya, et cetera. One thing we have tried to do on our part, and I know the EU is doing the same, is get started earlier not only on approaching others about resolutions, but in the approach to the CHR in general. When I first came, we kind of woke up after New Year's Eve and said, oh, my god, the commission's coming, we'd better get working on it. Now we've kind of made it a year-round issue. I know that on our part, and I think it's the same for the EU, we've engaged folks all the way up to Mr. Armitage, Mr. Powell, in some cases the president, in going after votes. When you lose something by one or two votes, you always look back and say maybe we could have done something a little differently to get that vote. But I think it's a mark of how much we do do and how much we've changed just these past couple of years, that we get that close. MS. KELLY: Well, what I'd add on that probably is that, yes, I agree very much with what Lorne has said, but I think that the governments have also been trying to invest capital in trying to make it work in the general sense, in the sense of reform, in addressing the issues that I identified, and trying to encourage--I mean, we--and I'm speaking for Ireland now, I mean, we do believe in the universality of the commission. We don't believe that--what is a pure democracy. And we believe that trying to develop criteria for membership would be extremely problematic. But we do agree that we should encourage the good guys in each group to go forward for it. I mean, if you take, for example, the electoral system, the group system, it's in WEOG that there are the most competitive elections--and, I think, actually also in the Eastern European Group that there are--and GRULAC, actually--there are very competitive elections. But there aren't in the Africa Group. But, I mean, that is actually a [inaudible] system phenomenon; it is not just in relation to the Commission on Human Rights. And, I mean, the Africa Group also [inaudible] candidates for the Security Council, which led to problems a couple of years ago as well. But just to say that I think we are spending more political capital on trying to reform and improve the commission and encourage others to play a more active part as well as in seeking support on individual resolutions. MR. CRANER: Let me come back one more time, if I can. I'm not sure there's one answer to making, for example, a vote better. I think there's a variety--there's not one silver bullet, there's a variety of things we need to do. I talked about changing the membership. Alison talked a little bit about the democracies working together. And that's something that the Chileans are trying to foster at this meeting, a bringing together of the Community of Democracy countries, not in the beginning to vote on the hardest resolution there is in Geneva, but in the beginning to try and coordinate and give information across country lines to try and run a resolution about rights to democracy, et cetera. It is certainly the case that, as Alison said, the democracies don't always agree with each other. Occasionally we have differences with France, for example, and France is a democracy. But we have a lot more in common with a country like France than we do with a country like Iran or Cuba or China. So we're not always going to agree on all resolutions, but certainly if you can pull especially some of these new democracies into this Community of Democracies democracy caucus forum at CHR, I think you can begin to get that last vote or two. The final thing I would say is, again, there are three elements: Try and change the membership, get it better and better every year; work together as a caucus of democracies; and then work for that last vote as hard as you can. MS. HENDERSON: I'll just make two brief comments in relation to that. In terms of, sort of, length of commitment through the year to CHR, of course, this year, as the chair, we've been extremely focused in the lead-up to CHR. The previous year we were vice-chair to Libya, which had its own interesting hooks. But I think we were quite focused for the long period in the lead-up to making sure that that was as productive a commission as could be achieved in the circumstances. And I think, although there were some fairly difficult moments, that previous 59th commission did go forward with some positive outcomes. Just to say on the Community of Democracies, of course, Australia has participated in that and we welcome the caucus that has been established within CHR and think that has potential to bring countries together to focus on their common interests. It's a welcome development. MR. MALINOWSKI: Let me just add--I mean, I just want to agree strongly with the point that Lorne made, that if you lose a resolution by one vote, that's a winnable resolution. And just to give you one concrete example, Chechnya, which we lost by one vote a couple of years ago--Swaziland abstained. And it seems to me that, if we're serious, the United States of America ought to be able to move Swaziland from Abstain to Yes on a resolution that has nothing to do with Africa or African solidarity. You know, what does it take? A phone call to the king, half an hour of the president's time. I used to work on the NSC staff. I know that's a lot easier said than done. But if it's a priority and if you're serious, it can be done. And, you know, some of these are clearly winnable. QUESTION: Eric Chenowith, Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe. It seems to me, if we want to talk about the success of the Human Rights Commission, we should speak about its successes and not only about its failures, and what models we can look at to see that it is successful. And the one I'm most familiar with is that of Poland, where 20-some-odd years ago there was an absolute, concerted, combined policy effort on the part of the United States involving the State Department, NSC, Ambassador Kirkpatrick, and many others to not only pass a resolution but ensure that there was a special rapporteur, to ensure that that special rapporteur was a good one, to ensure that that special rapporteur functioned and made a report back, that there were consequences, and that there was, indeed, some sort of moral opprobrium on the Polish government. And as a result of that, it responded. And this also extended to the other multilateral institution, which was the International Labor Organization, dealing with worker rights. It seems to me that that type of model is what's needed when concentrating focus on the Human Rights Commission. There should have been no doubt about Chechnya, for example, on the Chechnya vote. It should have passed. We know that. And there should be consequences for when resolutions pass and the governments do not cooperate with the U.N. commission. It seems to me that there should be an automatic expulsion mechanism when countries do not cooperate with the special rapporteurs, not only focused on their country but even on the issues. The issue rapporteurs cannot get into Cuba. Nothing happens. And that's what I would suggest. MR. MURAVCHIK: Anybody want to comment on that? Over here. QUESTION: Thanks. Dan Twining with the German Marshall Fund. I have very quick questions on China and Central Asia, and maybe, Lorne, just because you've been so personally committed on China, I wonder if you are free at all to comment on the extent to which commercial considerations influence the votes of the Western democracies in particular, and whether the Chinese use the commercial opportunities they have to offer as sort of a lobbying tool. And Tom, maybe I could ask you, we've seen a string of horrible bombings in Uzbekistan in the last few days. And, you know, people like you and Lorne and others, I think, drew the conclusion some time ago that countries like Uzbekistan have human rights policies that actually have contributed to their national security problems. And I think that's blown up this week, literally. I wonder if you could talk about instruments, including the commission and sort of beyond, that we should be looking at in terms of Central Asia more broadly. MR. CRANER: The Chinese offer not only penalties but inducements. I often say there are a lot of sports stadiums in Africa that owe their existence to the China resolution, because the Chinese mount a vigorous effort to try and get as many votes as they can. They clearly use--you know, obviously they use the human rights dialogue with us, because they shut it off as soon as we said we're going to have a resolution. Our point on dialogues, however, is that some results need to come of dialogues. There's no point in just chatting about these issues endlessly. I haven't seen them use commercial blatantly. I would recall the story of the--originally this was not an American resolution, China, it was a European resolution. The last European country that sponsored the resolution was Denmark, alone. And the Chinese ambassador in Geneva said--the quote was, If Denmark does this, we're going to squish it like a little bird with a stone, was the way he put it. And I don't think they had much of a relationship with Denmark for many years after that. But I'm not--I think they're a little bit more subtle about their commercial. They also use a lot of positive inducements to try and get people, and then they try and use negative inducements with folks like us. MR. MALINOWSKI: The China-Denmark story is a great one anytime anyone tells you that Asian governments find the whole notion of sanctions to be alien to their culture. You asked about Central Asia and the bombings in Uzbekistan. I mean, it's a horrible thing and a slightly mysterious thing. We really don't know yet what happened. We do know that the last time there bombings in Tashkent, several years ago, the Uzbek government responded by launching a truly massive crackdown, arresting literally thousands of people, most of whom were accused of nothing more than possessing leaflets of an Islamic organization, having beards, praying in the wrong place. And so, you know, as horrible as these things are, we're very concerned that we don't see a repetition of that, that the Uzbeks don't use this as a pretext to crack down further just at the time when the United States and others are pressing them extremely hard to clean up their human rights act. In fact, the day of the bombings, Human Rights Watch had a press conference in Tashkent, releasing a report on systematic torture of detainees from the last time there was a bombing. And so it's a very, very delicate moment. What can we do in terms of the commission? There's a resolution this year, and there was last year, on Turkmenistan. We would have liked to see a resolution on Uzbekistan. There were some European countries that talked about introducing one; the EU chose not to do so in the end, and it was another one of those classic cases where EU diplomats privately said it was all because the United States forced them not to do it, when in fact, I think, the truth of the matter was somewhat more complicated. In terms of other commission instruments, people have talked about the rapporteurs. And Uzbekistan is actually a country where we've used one of the rapporteurs to great effect. The torture rapporteur went into Uzbekistan last year--again, Lorne had a lot to do with getting the Uzbek government to agree to that--issued a scathing, blistering report on torture in Uzbek prisons, with a lot of recommendations that the Uzbek government now feels itself compelled to respond to. And they put out an action plan promising all kinds of steps to deal with the problem of torture. We'll see if that leads to improvements. But it was clearly an extraordinarily useful instrument and the kind of thing that we want to see the commission do more of. And then the rest of this is bilateral pressure. You know, ultimately the United States is going to have to be willing to say to governments like Uzbekistan that important elements of the relationship will be at stake if repression that not only hurts people but radicalizes the population continues. QUESTION: Edison Dick, American Bar Association. I'd like to follow up the question of rapporteurs. I understand they are now selected by the chair from a roster. And my question is whether it would be a good idea to have these individuals elected, to perhaps improve the overall quality or consistency of the rapporteurs. MR. CRANER: If you're going to have them elected, I wouldn't have them elected by the present membership of the commission. We're very fortunate this year that quite a few come up during the Australian chairs, while they're sitting. Maybe when the membership improves. QUESTION: Thank you. My name is [inaudible]. I'm from the Embassy of Hungary. My question relates to an issue that's not been discussed yet, and that is the thematic resolutions and the proliferation of thematic resolutions that are alien to the Human Rights Commission at all, by their subjects, by their purview. And I remember the expectations at the beginning of the '90s, when we were hoping--it was the heyday of the commission [inaudible]--we were hoping that these trends would continue. And there was a false expectation that if we--the West, that is--if we can be more indulgent on some issues like the right to development and allow more [inaudible] resolutions that are nice to the Third World countries, then they would be nicer to us, so there would be a kind of balance established between the North and the South. And what we have now--we have resolutions defeated, we have resolutions proliferating in the thematic field, which rapporteurs, you know, investigating toxic waste and other issues that are totally alien to the Human Rights Commission. And my question to the panel is what can we do about it? Thank you. MR. MALINOWSKI: Well, I'm not as concerned as you are by that phenomenon. First of all, there are some thematic resolutions that are quite relevant. What you're talking about are some of the more extraneous ones, which, you know, I think we can all agree don't advance the cause of human rights very much but, I also would argue, don't really harm it very much, either. And I think the United States has had a problem operating in this very political environment of the Human Rights Commission and taking these lonely, aggressive stands against some of these resolutions--you know, going down and calling for a roll call vote on the right-to-food resolution and going down to defeat 50-1. You know, I mean, what purpose does that serve? It's sort of like, you know, if you're a United States senator and you march down to the floor of the U.S. Senate and you demand a roll call vote on the National Cheese Week resolution. And you go down 99-1. It's no way of getting your colleagues' support on things that are truly important, like taxes and trade and the budget, right? And I think we have to approach the commission with the same political mindset. It's a political body. Sometimes you do have to allow your colleagues to do things that you think are slightly silly but which don't harm the fundamental goals very much, in order to be able to get their support on issues that truly do matter. QUESTION: Dave Peterson, National Endowment for Democracy. I'm very intrigued by the role of the Africa Group, the problems with it, and in fact the role of nongovernmental organizations in the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Many of the human rights NGOs that we work with invest a lot of importance in the commission. How important are they, in fact? How much influence and power do they have in the commission? What possibility is there to enlist their support in getting more democratic African governments on the commission and in working with NGOs to prevail on certain issues at the commission? MR. CRANER: I would say separate it into two issues. How useful are they at the commission? I think they're very useful in terms of, really, illustrating what we're talking about. You can talk very dryly about a 1503 procedure for Uzbekistan. But if you see people come in from Uzbekistan who've spent time in prison, et cetera, for no good reason, then you have a sense of what you're dealing with. They're very helpful in lobbying different countries at the CHR. Where I think they could be even more useful--is what you're talking about--is in African countries, going to their governments, and saying why is it that 12 of 15--what image does this give to Africa when 12 of the 15 countries from Africa are authoritarian countries? That just continues those old stereotypes. And I would hope they will do that. MR. MURAVCHIK: Okay. We're done. I had promised Lorne's assistant to try to get him out of here early, and I've broken my promise. Well, we're still--we're a minute or two early. I want to thank each of our panelists. Each one of them, I thought, was excellent and contributed a lot. And thank all of you for coming. Look for our notice of our next session, which will be sometime next month. [Applause.]</body></html>