Prediction: when Olivier de Schutter, who holds the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Cuban-sponsored mandate on the “right to food,” delivers next week’s 2012 King & Wood Mallesons Annual Lecture at Monash University’s Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, he will (1) tell students how terrible food security is in Australia; (2) remain silent on those starving Syria; (3) say nothing of the 3.5 million facing malnutrition in Mali.
Here is what the smart students of Monash should ask Mr. De Schutter: Continue reading ‘Prediction: UN friend of Assad will slam Australian “hunger” in Monash lecture’
Olivier de Schutter, who holds the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Cuban-sponsored mandate on the “right to food,” is appearing this afternoon at a special briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Charged with speaking out for starving people, he recently announced that he is seeking to investigate America. His event today is sponsored by Rep. James P. McGovern and Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro. UN Watch director Hillel Neuer sent them the following letter today.
Dear Congressman McGovern,
I know that you are a sincere activist for the cause of hungry people and I salute you for that. At the same time, I must tell you that I was surprised to see that you and Rep. Rose DeLauro are today co-sponsoring a congressional briefing by such a dubious authority as Olivier De Schutter, the UN Human Rights Council’s “Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food”—who, inexplicably, seeks to launch an investigation of America. Continue reading ‘Seeking to investigate America, U.N.’s Cuban-sponsored “hunger expert” appears in U.S. Congress today for special briefing’
The UN Human Rights Council’s Cuban-sponsored hunger expert, Olivier De Schutter, is appearing at a congressional briefing this afternoon on Capitol Hill. According to recent news reports, he is trying to launch an investigation of America. For more on De Schutter, click here.
“A scheduling conflict scuppered De Schutter’s plans to visit the UK in July 2011, and the United States has so far ignored his request for a mission…” Toronto Sun
“De Schutter added that he has asked to go to the United States and a few other developed countries, but so far has not been invited. He said he chose Canada because there is a standing invitation for UN officials.” Canadian Press
Apart from his gushing praise of Syria, and the origins of his dictator-driven mandate, here are other key facts that UN Human Rights Council hunger expert Olivier De Schutter and his supporters didn’t want Canadians to know this week:
1. Contrary to what the Toronto Star’s David Olive reported, De Schutter does not speak for the UN. As an independent expert of the UN Human Rights Council, holding a mandate initiated by Cuba and other tyrannies, he reports to the council but speaks only for himself. As High Commissioner Pillay confirmed to me in a letter, “special procedures mandate-holders are neither representatives nor employees of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights”; instead they serve “in their independent capacities.” Continue reading ‘UN itself thinks UN rights council hunger expert is a fraud’
Above: The UN Human Rights Council’s Cuban-sponsored Olivier De Schutter, left, with Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad. Damascus, 2010.
Today the UN Human Rights Council’s “right to food” expert made international headlines with a stinging report on the urgent food crisis in. . . Canada. How absurd.
On May 4th, just before Olivier De Schutter began his 11-day investigation of the great Canadian food emergency, I asked his Geneva spokesperson, Ms. Yoonie Kim, what her boss planned to say about the genuine hunger situation facing 500,000 people in Syria.
She replied that De Schutter had no plans to say anything at all about Syria. This, she explained, was because (a) he had no first-hand knowledge of the situation and (b) other UN officials were already dealing with it. Funny, neither supposed obstacle has ever prevented him from opining sharply on all kinds of other situations around the globe.
Continue reading ‘UN hunger expert hails Syrian “openness” & “excellent” cooperation’
The National Post (Canada)
May 5, 2012, p. A20
EDITORIALS
By Hillel Neuer
 |
Olivier De Schutter is the UN Human Rights Council’s “Special Rapporteur on the right to food,” a post initiated by Cuba. Tomorrow he begins an 11-day investigation of Canada.
De Schutter’s senior adviser, Priscilla Claeys, previously worked with Oxfam Canada, part of the group that is unofficially coordinating his visit, and with Rights and Democracy—a Canadian agency soon to be shut down—where she collaborated with the UN office of Jean Ziegler, co-founder of the “Muammar Qaddafi Human RIghts Prize” and De Schutter’s predecessor. |
“There is no food and no clean water, nothing,” Mahmoud, a 12-year-old boy from Homs, Syria, told Reuters Thursday. “There is no shop open and we only have one meal a day. How can we live like that and survive?”
According to the World Food Program, half a million people don’t have enough to eat in Syria. Fears are growing that the regime is using hunger as a weapon.
This is the kind of emergency which should attract the attention of the UN Human Rights Council’s hunger monitor, who has the ability to spotlight situations and place them on the world agenda. Yet Olivier de Schutter of Belgium, the “Special Rapporteur on the right to food,” is not going to Syria.
Instead, the UN’s food monitor is coming to investigate Canada. Continue reading ‘As much of the world starves, UN sends hunger probe to… Canada’
Recent Comments