United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan sought to drum up support for his reforms of the world body on Thursday, by warning member states that human rights have entered a ”new era” focusing on their actions to respect fundamental freedoms.
Annan told the UN Human Rights Commission that his controversial plans to revamp the 53-member body marks the end of a 60-year period that has been dominated by the establishment of international human rights standards and obligations.
”The cause of human rights has entered a new era,” Annan said in a keynote speech. ”The era of declaration is now giving way, as it should, to an era of implementation.”
Annan urged countries to rally swiftly around his attempt to bolster and sharpen the pillars of the UN’s human rights effort, giving them more authority to ensure that all countries fulfil their obligations.
”Nobody has a monopoly on human rights virtue. Abuses are found in rich countries as well as poor,” Annan insisted.
The international community’s commitment still faces a test in Sudan’s strife-torn region of Darfur, Annan said, despite recent progress with an agreement to bring abuse there before the International Criminal Court.
Although welcome, the African Union peacekeeping force is ”clearly not sufficient” to maintain security throughout the region and there is ”hardly any progress towards political settlement”, the UN chief said.
”For all of us, as individuals and as an institution, this situation is a test. For thousands of men, women, and children, our response is already too late,” Annan warned.
An estimated 300 000 people have died in Darfur and more than two million have been forced to flee their homes after being targeted in two years of violence involving government forces, allied militia and local rebels.
A parliamentarian from Darfur said in Sudan on Wednesday that his passport had been confiscated and he had been barred from travelling to the meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
Sudan is a member of the commission until 2007.
Annan admitted his proposals to change the rights forum, unveiled last month as part of broader reform of the world body, are ”dramatic”.
They include reducing the size of the commission and setting up a membership test on human rights merit, following accusations that the current body is dominated by countries with a record of abuse.
The UN chief reiterated on Thursday that the issue is undermining public confidence in the UN as a whole, and warned that ”piecemeal reforms” will not be enough.
”A new human rights council must be a society of the committed. It must be more accountable and representative,” Annan said.
”I urge member states to reach early agreement in principle to establish a human rights council,” he added.
He also called for the UN’s overall budget for human rights — currently 2% of its regular funding — to be scaled up.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, has been asked to produce a ”plan of action” by May 20.
Annan’s proposals will involve the election of human rights council members by a two-thirds majority of all the 191 UN member states in the General Assembly, and the body will sit throughout the year.
The current 53 member states of the commission are elected on renewable mandates by influential regional groups within the UN, and only meet for six weeks every year.
The proposals will also ensure the council systematically checks on every country’s human rights record as well as more urgent issues, while the current commission only acts on resolutions presented by members.
Critics charge that the system has led to excessive political bargaining or sparring in the UN’s top human rights body, paralysing meaningful action.
Annan later told journalists that he does not intend to move the UN’s human rights effort from Geneva to New York. — Sapa-AFP