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Decline and Fall of the UN Human Rights Council: ‘Appeasement’ of Libya – as new Council Member

The United Nations Human Rights Council, often considered the ‘Conscience of Humanity’, is unfortunately being hijacked and misused by representatives of undemocratic countries. They often appear more interested in protecting their governments from criticism than advancing the cause of human rights, condemning Israel more frequently than all 57 members of the OIC (56 states plus “Palestine”) combined. At the Vienna Forum on May 9, 2010, NGO Representative David G. Littman gave examples on the misuse of what could have been a worthy institution.

Comments by David G. Littman, NGO Representative at the UN in Geneva:
Association for World Education and World Union for Progressive Judaism

The Vienna Forum Conference took place at the Neuwaldegg Castle just outside Vienna on 6-9 May 2010. Co-sponsored by the Hudson Institute, the Educational Initiative for Central and Eastern Europe (EICEE) and the Kairos Journal, there were more than 40 panellists, including academics and distinguished experts from various countries of Europe and the United States. The subject: ‘The Future of Europe and the Question of Islam’; I was conveniently placed as the last speaker on the last panel; my theme: ‘Islam at the UN Human Rights Council’. Although everything was filmed and recorded by the organizers, we are indebted to EuropeNews for having filmed and recorded everything independently and to the organizers in giving their prior approval for those videos and the presentations to be posted on various websites – mine is below virtually verbatim. The passages in square brackets were not pronounced in the 20 minutes allowed, but were in my prepared text and have been left as is my UN habit since 1986.

My intention was to read the conclusion to Churchill’s brief historic House of Commons speech on 13 May 1940 – ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’ – pronounced almost exactly 70 years ago, but time did not allow me. He was received in Parliament two days after becoming Prime Minister with almost total silence by the Conservatives, in contrast to Neville Chamberlain, who was even cheered in the House of Lords. I have left Churchill’s words below, for they are certainly worth meditating today by those who can see and hear the Gathering Storm on the horizon.

By an extraordinary coincidence, Libya and Switzerland were accepted as members of the 47-State Human Rights Council on the 13th May 2010, exactly 70 years after Churchill’s speech. It is more than likely that Libya will be welcomed back – in 2003 Libya held the Chair – with enthusiasm by the OIC, Arab League, African Union and the NAM (Non-aligned Movement), as a form of Appeasement after the ‘Hannibal Affair‘ ; whereas Switzerland more grudgingly by most groups as a result of its popular vote against construction of minarets (November 2009), and being criticized in the customary “Defamation of Religions” resolution in March 2010.

Full transcript of the speech:
Note: The passages in square brackets [] were not pronounced in the 20 minutes period allowed (finally 22 minutes) but were in my prepared text & have been left, as is my habit at the UN in Geneva.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be back in Vienna to address you and I wish to thank the organizers for giving me the opportunity to be the last speaker [on a crucial subject, ‘Islam at the UN Human Rights Council’.] As it is writ in sacred texts: “The first shall be last and the last first.” The World Conference on Human Rights was adopted here in 1993 as the VIENNA DECLARATION AND PROGRAMME OF ACTION – referred to as the DPA; it recognised and affirmed:

that all human rights derive from the dignity and worth inherent in the human person, and that the human person is the central subject of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and consequently should be the principal beneficiary and should participate actively in the realization of these rights and freedoms.

Article 1 states :

The World Conference on Human Rights reaffirms the solemn commitment of all States to fulfill their obligations to promote universal respect for, and observance and protection of, all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, other instruments relating to human rights, and international law. The universal nature of these rights and freedoms is beyond question.

[In this framework, enhancement of international cooperation in the field of human rights is essential for the full achievement of the purposes of the United Nations. Human rights and fundamental freedoms are the birthright of all human beings; their protection and promotion is the first responsibility of Governments.]  

In its penultimate paragraph the [27-page Declaration & Programme of Action] DPA concludes with a Follow-up to the World Conference on Human Rights and “further recommends that the Commission on Human Rights annually review the progress towards this end.” Yes, you heard me correctly – “the Commission on Human Rights.”

[The DPA inspired me to plead successfully here in 1996 – with Archduke Felix Habsburg and his lawyer at a widely covered press conference – and later in the Hofburg for Archdukes Karl and Felix to be allowed to use their Austrian passports for travel to Austria, until then forbidden to both of them.]

[99 – The World Conference on Human Rights on Human Rights recommends that the General Assembly, the Commission on Human Rights and other organs and agencies of the United Nations system related to human rights consider ways and means for the full implementation, without delay, of the recommendations contained in the present Declaration, including the possibility of proclaiming a United Nations decade for human rights. The World Conference on Human Rights further recommends that the Commission on Human Rights annually review the progress towards this end.

100 – The World Conference on Human Rights requests the Secretary-General of the United Nations to invite on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights all States all organs and agencies of the United Nations system related to human rights, to report to him on the progress made in the implementation of the present Declaration and to submit a report to the General Assembly at its fifty-third session, through the Commission on Human Rights and the Economic and Social Council.

Likewise, regional and, as appropriate, national human rights institutions, as well as non-governmental organizations, may present their views to the Secretary-General on the progress made in the implementation of the present Declaration. Special attention should be paid to assessing the progress towards the goal of universal ratification of international human rights treaties and protocols adopted within the framework of the United Nations system.]

In articles published in 1994 on slavery in Sudan; threats against the Special Rapporteur Gaspar Biro; and since 1997 on: “Blasphemy at the United Nations”; “Universal Human Rights and ‘Human Rights in Islam'”; “Islamism Grows Stronger at the United Nations; Stealth Jihad at the UN; and many other texts, we have illustrated how a systematic effort has been made at the United Nations by certain member States to replace some of the dominant paradigms of international relations – now referred to as “complementary standards” by OIC countries [the Organization of the Islamic Conference] and the UN in a diplomatic language.

Already in September 1992, six months before the Vienna Conference, the Final Declaration of the Conference of the 108 Non-Aligned Countries held at Djarkarta, Indonesia, stressed “differences in cultures” and implied that differences in the interpretation of human rights should be recognized. This soon became the “cultural relativism” ploy which we have warned against systematically since then.

[Yes, religions and traditional societies deserve respect, without however losing sight of the goals laid down in the International Bill of Human Rights; but any reinterpretation of human rights beyond the existing framework of international norms – that is, the various forms of “cultural relativism” – quickly leads to grave human rights abuses by dictatorial regimes, whose countries are signatories to the International Bill of Rights and to the other International Human Rights Instruments.]

At the recent 13th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on 23 March, speaking jointly for the Association for World Education and the World Union for Progressive Judaism in the context of the Vienna DPA, we paid homage to Sérgio Vieira de Mello, the then High Commissioner for Human Rights who was tragically slaughtered, with 20 other members of his staff, in the Baghdad Canal Hotel Bombing of 19 August 2003, after the UN refused allied military protection – in order not to imply any UN links. He was there as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Iraq.

In his last report on the ‘Follow-up to the World Conference on Human Rights’, he pertinently stated the hopeless mess into which the Commission had fallen; it was this report that led to an attempt to improve the structure and mechanisms on Human Rights and finally to the creation of the Human Rights Council. [E/CN.4/2003/14]

[I personally remember how shocked he was on taking up his new job in autumn 2002 when he realised the level to which the Commission had sunk & then tried desperately to fix it rapidly. In a joking manner, I reminded him, before he left for Baghdad, of the words of Shakespeare in the mouth of John of Gaunt: “Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short; He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes.” (King Richard II, Act II: i, 35-36). He liked it, but three months later he was killed by a jihadist bomber.]

We shall quote his courageous words seven years later – as we did at the Commission soon after his death, and recently again – for they were a harbinger of the gathering, stealth storm that resulted in a decision to replace the discredited Commission with what was intended to be a responsible body – the Human Rights Council:

Membership of the Commission on Human Rights must carry responsibilities. I therefore wonder whether the time has not come for the Commission itself to develop a code of guidelines for access to membership of the Commission and a code of conduct for members while they serve on the Commission. After all, the Commission on Human Rights has a duty to humanity and the members of the Commission must themselves set the example of adherence to the international human rights norms – in practice as well as in law.” [Point 5 – see also §4]

His conclusion then is still meaningful today when we consider the disastrous follow-ups to the Vienna Declaration and the two World Conferences on Racism in 2001, known as Durban I and what is often called Durban II (last year in Geneva), despite what is propagated worldwide by Durban idolaters and the current catastrophic Human Rights Council. Here are de Mello’s words:

Without universal respect for human rights, the vision of the Charter of a world of peace grounded in respect for human rights and economic and social justice will remain an illusion. Let us vindicate the Charter’s vision by being faithful to the universal implementation of human rights. In doing so we shall continue in the direction of history, rather than allowing ourselves to be diverted from the course we know to be just.” [§ 55]

A year later in 2004, when introducing recommendations for a new Human Rights Council, Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared that the Commission had been undermined by allowing participation of countries whose purpose was “not to strengthen human rights but to protect themselves against criticism or to criticize others.” His chief of staff then, Mark Malloch Brown, put it more bluntly: “For the great global public, the performance or non-performance of the Human Rights Commission has become the litmus test of UN renewal.” Little has changed since – in reality it is worse – except that the great expectations have been dissipated by a gloomy despair, and worse is to come for those who do not have eyes to see and ears to hear.  

As a veteran NGO human rights defender since 1986 at the United Nations in Geneva, I have watched – what is grandly called ‘the international community’ – at the Palais des Nations, which I sometimes call, in remembrance of Ludwig II [of Bavaria], the Palais Schwanstein:

descending incontinently, recklessly, the staircase which leads to a dark gulf. It is a fine broad staircase at the beginning, but, after a bit, the carpet ends. A little further on there are only flagstones, and, a little further on still, these break beneath your feet.

This timeless description by Churchill of Britain’s situation at a crucial moment on the 24th March 1938 in the House of Commons, during the period of grotesque Appeasement, gives a vivid image of the general climate nowadays at the UN Human Rights Council.  

The problem is that everyone knows, but no one wants to recognise the fact that the Emperor strutting in his Palace des Nations, announcing royally: ‘L’Etat c’est moi’ [I am the State]- or rather ‘Les droits de l’Homme, c’est nous’ [Human Rights is us] – is stark naked.