2023-10-08 20:58:38
Russia tries to return to the UN Human Rights Council
Russia, excluded from the UN Human Rights Council after its invasion of Ukraine, will try to return there on Tuesday. The UN General Assembly will elect 15 new members of this Geneva-based body on Tuesday for the period 2024-2026. While its 47 members are distributed by major region, each regional group generally pre-selects its candidates, then approved without difficulty by the General Assembly.
But this year, two groups have more candidates than seats: Latin America (Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Peru are candidates, for three seats) and Eastern Europe (Albania , Bulgaria and Russia, for two seats).
A few days after the carnage in the Ukrainian village of Hroza, where more than fifty people were killed by a Russian strike, Moscow’s candidacy is attracting all eyes. “We hope that UN members will firmly reject this grotesque candidacy”a spokesperson for the US State Department told Agence France-Presse. “Members of Russian forces have committed violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine”he notably denounced.
Mariana Katzarova, an expert commissioned by the Human Rights Council, recently estimated that repression in Russia has intensified since the invasion of Ukraine, reaching “an unprecedented level in recent history”.
To be elected, a country needs 97 votes out of the 193 member states. As of April 2022, 93 countries supported Russia’s “suspension” from the Council, and 24 voted against. This majority against Russia was less overwhelming than that of the resolutions defending the territorial integrity of Ukraine (around 140 votes), but the question of the Human Rights Council was more complex, certain countries with questionable records in matter fearing to one day suffer the same fate. The particularity of Tuesday’s vote is that it will take place by secret ballot, in a fragmented world where many countries are tiring of the attention paid to Ukraine by the West.
“I think the Western diplomats in New York are rather worried”underlined Richard Gowan, of the International Crisis Group, estimating that a Russian election would be “a public relations disaster for the UN”. “Russia always says that many UN member states sympathize with it in private, but do not support it in public for fear of antagonizing Western powers”he added. “Moscow hopes for the support of this supposed silent majority in this secret vote”.
“There is no model of democracy or rogue state, as some sometimes describe it”defended for his part the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vassili Nebenzia. “No member state can claim to be immune from human rights violations”.
Certainly, no country “has an unblemished record”noted Louis Charbonneau of Human Rights Watch. “But every member of the UN should recognize that the Council has membership criteria for which Russia and China show abject disregard”. The NGO thus called on member states not to vote for Beijing either due in particular to violations of the rights of the Uyghur minority – China, however, does not risk much in the Asia group where there are four candidates for four seats. HRW also calls on member states not to give their vote to Cuba, while the organization International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) believes that, in addition to Russia and China, Burundi is not “not worthy” to be a member of the Council.
Among the other candidates on Tuesday, we also find Ivory Coast, Malawi, Ghana, Kuwait, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands and France.
Read also: Russia suspended from the UN Human Rights Council
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