News: “Gov’ts Routinely Dodge U.N. Human Rights Investigators”

Thalif Deen, “Gov’ts Routinely Dodge U.N. Human Rights Investigators” (IPS) (22 September 2007):

The United Nations is disappointed that an increasingly large number of member states are either refusing to respond to charges of extra-judicial killings or have turned down requests for visits by U.N. special envoys mandated to monitor arbitrary and summary executions in these countries.

The 27 states that have so far failed to agree to visits range from Security Council members, such as China, Russia and the United States, to countries like El Salvador, Kenya, Thailand, Israel, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.

“The fact that 90 percent of countries identified as warranting a country visit have failed to cooperate with the system — and that the (Human Rights) Council has done nothing in response — is a major indictment of the system,” said Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

“No matter how grave the issue and how blatant or compromised the conduct of the relevant government,” the Geneva-based Human Rights Council “remains entirely unmoved,” Alston said in a 21-page report to the 62nd session of the General Assembly, which opened last week and concludes in December.

. . .

Tania Baldwin-Pask, adviser on International Organizations, International Law, and Organizations Programme at the London-based Amnesty International (AI), says this is a “chronic problem” for all U.N. human rights investigators.

“AI has consistently raised (this issue) because it is so fundamental to the functioning of the system that all member states cooperate with the special procedures. It goes to the heart of universality and non-selectivity, which so many states are keen to stress in other contexts,” she told IPS.

. . .

Alston, she pointed out, has been the most persistent in seeking to draw the attention of the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly to this issue.

Regrettably, Baldwin-Pask said, the unwillingness of states to facilitate visit requests is quite common, although they have different ways in which they approach this.

She said few take the approach of Singapore (and as highlighted in the report) whereby they flatly refuse a mission request. Many take a considerable amount of time to “discuss with their capitals” and put in place the necessary arrangements for the visit to go ahead.

But because the Human Rights Council has no mechanism at this time to check — state by state — the status of mission requests, it is easy for states to simply ignore these requests.

Consequently, she said, you have states such as Turkmenistan which has never received a visit by human rights monitors, despite 11 different mandate-holders over the course of the past few years seeking to go on mission there.

And the Council, she complained, “as yet not taking action in response”.

. . .

Some member states like to use the opportunity of the Council or the General Assembly to announce that they have invited a particular U.N. rapporteur to visit, which on the face of it looks as if they are willing to cooperate with the special rapporteurs, or even the Council itself — only to postpone the mission, she added. Of course, states rarely make a public announcement about the postponement.

Philip Alston’s full report is available here.