The Durban Ad Hoc Committee wrapped up this afternoon after adopting its final report by consensus. The report reproduces the proposals made by the regional groups over the previous two weeks and will be submitted for review at the Human Rights Council in March 2010. Continue reading ‘Durban Ad Hoc Committee: Day 8 Afternoon’
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Archive for October, 2009
The legacy of Eleanor Roosevelt is still alive in Geneva, within at least some UN human rights bodies.
Today the United Nations Human Rights Committee (an 18-member expert body that is not to be confused with the politicized Human Rights Council) issued the following concluding observations from its review of Switzerland: Continue reading ‘UN slams Switzerland for failing to investigate “pattern of anti-Semitic incidents”’
Discussions gave way to disagreements at this morning’s Durban Ad Hoc Committee meeting. Countries debated the role of existing convenants, namely the ICERD (International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination), in formulating new standards. Western states stressed the need to bolster existing monitors before creating new ones, going so far as to demand Arab and African countries for evidence that there are gaps in current laws. Continue reading ‘Durban Ad Hoc Committee: Day 7 Morning’
African and Arab countries continued to press for changes to international law at this afternoon’s Durban follow-up meeting, ignoring calls by Western countries to address the underlying reasons why current standards have failed to address hate crimes. Continue reading ‘Durban Ad Hoc Committee: Day 6 Afternoon’
Ms. Gay McDougall, the U.N.’s chief monitor of discrimination against minority groups, and a leading defender of the 2001 Durban conference, just wrapped up a 10-day investigation of Canada by accusing it of failures and “significant and persistent problems.”
Interestingly, McDougall has never investigated any of the countries listed by Freedom House as the world’s worst human rights abusers: not China, Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Burma, Chinese-ruled Tibet, South Ossetia in Georgia, Chechnya in Russia, or Zimbabwe. Continue reading ‘U.N. Investigates Canada and U.S. But Ignores Worst Abusers’
Last month’s Harper’s magazine published a revisionist history by Naomi Klein of the 2001 Durban conference and its 2009 would-be sequel, Durban II. My contemporary and fellow Jewish Montrealer told a great story — except that it was entirely fictional, a figment of her rabidly anti-Western and anti-Israel imagination. Continue reading ‘When law professors believe Naomi Klein’
Has blogger Andrew Sullivan done a 180 on the U.N.’s Orwellian-named Human Rights Council?
Two years ago, Sullivan linked to my speech — the one banned by the council president from ever being uttered again – and rightly recognized how “depraved” the U.N. can get in its pathological obsession with condemning Israel to divert attention from the world’s worst abusers.
Now, though, Sullivan seems to have defected, taking seriously the statements of a body controlled by Havana, Harare and the House of Saud, and attacking UN Watch.
To disparage last week’s compelling UN testimony of British hero and military expert Col. Richard Kemp (the speech now ranked as YouTube’s 25th Top Rated News Video of the week), Sullivan tries to discredit us — the Geneva non-governmental organization that sponsored the officer’s address — as being a “hard Neocon group.”
Sullivan’s inexplicable slur fails even in its intended ad hominem effect given that the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan already made the same remarks on the BBC during the war in January. If Sullivan disagrees with the content, it’s neither here nor there that we invited the British hero to repeat his words before the Goldstone-loving despots in Geneva.
The slur is also nothing shy of incoherent. If we are to believe Andrew Sullivan, UN Watch would become the first “hard neocon” group in history to be chaired by a former Carter Administration official who actively campaigned for Barack Obama’s election to the presidency, to lobby for gay rights, featuring as a leading spokesman the father of Canada’s gay marriage bill, and to actively welcome the U.S. decision to join the UN Human Rights Council.Sullivan has his sources, though: he relies on the universally respected scholarly authority of… anonymous Wikipedia users.
The truth is that UN Watch is completely non-partisan, committed to upholding the noble prinicples of the UN Charter and human rights for all.
It wasn’t so long ago that people who promoted these goals by urging the UN to end its self-injurious Israel-bashing were considered true friends of the United Nations organization. Today, in some quarters, that’s enough to get you tarred a “hard Neocon.”
GENEVA, October 16, 2009 - The former commander of British forces in Afghanistan upset the Arab sponsors of today’s U.N. special session when his expert testimony contradicted the thesis of the Goldstone Report. “Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare,” said. Col. Richard Kemp.
Continue reading ‘UK Commander’s Expert Testimony Stirs UN Controversy by Contradicting Goldstone Report’
A U.N. human rights official in Gaza slammed the Palestinian authority and the UN Human Rights Council for their delaying of a vote on the Goldstone report, saying the Abbas government “wasted a valuable opportunity,” reports the Palestine Information Center.
Saul Takahashi, an official of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), lamented the Council’s delay, saying it “would impose new facts on the ground through exercising political pressures to undermine the [Goldstone] report,” which he called “the strongest executive report in UN history.”
It is highly irregular for a UN human rights bureaucrat to criticize a decision of the UN Human Rights Council, the body they are meant to serve, but perhaps exceptions are allowed when the criticism is that the 47-nation body was not sufficiently critical of Israel. Continue reading ‘UN official blasts PA’s Abbas and UN rights council for Goldstone delay’
Geneva insiders report that the UN Human Rights Council is planning to hold a special session on the Goldstone report, next week or the week after.
Recall that the UNHRC decided last week to defer consideration of the report until its next regular scheduled session, in March 2010. There being no current emergency, calling a special session now would be a gross abuse of the procedure, even more egergious than the usual. There have been no special sessions on Iran’s repression of protesters, China’s killing of Muslim Uighurs, etc.
Since its inception in 2006, the council has held 9 special sessions dealing with countries, of which 5 have been devoted to condemning Israel, versus only 4 sessions for the rest of the world combined. An additional two sessions were called on the world food and financial crises, both to point fingers at the West. Continue reading ‘U.N. Rights Council Planning Emergency Session on Goldstone Report’
The Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) on Durban Follow-up started its seventh session on Monday. The group was established following the 2001 Durban Conference with a mandate to implement its Declaration and Program of Action. Like many other ill-fated UN anti-racism initiatives, the IGWG it has been exploited by abusive regimes that are hostile to the very notion of human rights, seeking internatonal legitimacy as they deny freedom to their people.
By the end of its second day, this week’s IGWG session has met for a total of 90 minutes, instead of the scheduled 12 hours. Why the delay? A stand-off over who will chair the group. In the interim, the Secretariat is presiding, in the person of Mona Rishmawi, the Palestinian lawyer and former activist who recently became Chief of the Rule of Law, Equality and Non-Discrimination Branch of the OHCHR.
The IGWG used to be headed by the former Ambassador of Sri Lanka, Mr. Dayan Jayatilleka, who was recently recalled by his government after a reported internal political dispute.
Who will now lead the world effort to combat racism and xenophobia? Nigeria for the African Group made the only nomination: Sudan. Yes, the country whose ruler has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for its racist genocide in Darfur. Continue reading ‘Genocidal Sudan Nominated to Head U.N. Anti-Racism Panel’
Nazanin Afshin-Jam, international human rights activist and President of Stop Child Executions, was hosted by UN Watch in September 2009 for a panel discussion during the U.N. Human Rights Council’s 12th session. She also spoke before the Council on grave human rights abuses in Iran following the election crisis. Read below her update about a recent meeting with the Dalai Lama.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Geneva, Oct. 1, 2009 - UN Watch comments on the surprise news that the Palestinian draft resolution on the Goldstone report has been withdrawn prior to voting tomorrow at the UN Human Rights Council:
“This constitutes a massive defeat for Mr. Goldstone’s biased report, a slipshod piece of work whose scattershot recommendations to the entire world threatened to harm, not help, the peace process,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva human rights monitoring group.
“Goldstone’s reliance on Hamas witnesses — including the same Hamas police spokesman , Islam Shahwan, that accused Israel of distributing aphrodisiac gum to corrupt Gaza youth — reflected the biased agenda of the Arab-controlled UN Human Rights Council, which created the ‘fact-finding’ mission by declaring Israel guilty in advance.”
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