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Should the US be cooperating more with the UN Human Rights Council?
Should the US be cooperating more with the UN Human Rights Council?
The United Nations Human Rights Council describes itself as "an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system made up of 47 States responsible for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe." And the UN Secretary General says “All victims of human rights abuses should be able to look to the Human Rights Council as a forum and a springboard for action." This includes victims in developed countries. Unfortunately some of the countries on the Human Rights Council are not themselves not setting good examples inthe area of Human Rights - Libya for example was a member before the fall of Gaddafi. As a result the Council has sometimes just been considered to be a way to needle the United States and Israel on their human rights record. As a result during the Bush administration there was no cooperation at all with the Council by the United Nations. However this has changed under Obama and the United States has even won a seat. However there are still times where the Council does not get very much cooperation from the United States, not least from the Hill. The rapporteurs often get little or no response to written questions and the United States has been dodging questions on its campaign of extrajudicial killings. Another area where the council has often not received much response is when attempting to investigate ‘torture’. For example the UN’s rapporteur on torture was not allowed to meet privately with Bradley Manning, the US military officer accused of being the source of the wikileaks on the United States State department and its operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The rapporteur was trying to investigate whether holding him for an extended period in solitary confinement constituted torture. So what do you think, should the United States be cooperating more with the United Nations Human Rights Council even when it often targets democracies such as the United States and Israel rather that regimes that are engaging in much larger human rights violations?
http://bosco.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/06/20/are_un_human_rights_officials_and_the_united_states
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/AboutCouncil.aspx
51 weeks 5 days ago
The problem is that the US has a very shakey history of international cooperation when it comes to UNHRC, they are the only democracy to not sign up to the Rights of a Child,and several other conventions of a similar nature.
They are human rights violators in numerous ways, in respect to toruture, freee speech, gender equality, the list goes on. They do not and cannot lead the world in terms of human rights, until they accept the fact they need to improve their own first. The interaction that the US has with the UN is rather strained than with many European states as a result of the attitudes around the UN System. While basically an American creation, the US outside the Security Council does not have as much sway as it thinks it should- but no one states does in these larger committees like the General Assembly or the Economic and Social. The problem is the US wants things done through the UN their way, and does not want to give any to do things in terms of teh internatonal standard.
Yes the US needs to be cooperating more the the UN System as a whole, but it will not, because there is very little it stands to gain by caving into the demands of the UN, and a great deal of repect it feels it will lose if it does.
45 weeks 5 days ago
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The United States really should lead by example; if it is not willing to be completely open to the UNHRC then how can it expect others to be equally open when around the world Human Rights are often considered by governments to simply be used as an excuse to put pressure on them and paint them as the bad guy. Yes the result is that there is more scrutiny of the United States but given that the United States is usually pretty open to scrutiny from its own media and people it is not losing much to be completely transparent with the United Nations.
With things like not allowing the UN rapporteur private access to Bradley Manning what is the worse that could happen: The UN publishes a report that admonishes the US and it is condemned in the council. That could of course still happen even without being transparent but with the added charge of trying to disrupt the council's work attached.