High hopes, disappointment over new UN rights plan
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-02-23 15:07

Diplomats pushing for a strong new Human Rights Council at the United Nations scrambled on Thursday to put a bright face on plans for its creation, arguing it would mark a big step forward despite falling short of their original goals.

"Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good," said one UN envoy involved in lengthy talks over the new council, the centerpiece of an ambitious reform plan driven by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and backed by the United States

"This is certainly well short of what we had hoped for, but it could have been much worse," said another UN diplomat.

The council is meant to replace the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission, a 53-nation Geneva-based panel better known for blocking criticism of human rights abuses than defending them, and for giving seats to nations like Sudan and Zimbabwe.

But the drafting process quickly turned into a minefield.

Western powers pushed for a smaller body that would exclude chronic rights violators from membership, while developing nations battled to prevent a Western-dominated body from running roughshod over them while ignoring abuses by major powers like China, Russia and the United States.

Capping months of delicate talks and numerous concessions, UN General Assembly President Jan Eliasson of Sweden planned to unveil his final compromise plan on Thursday and to have a draft resolution adopted by the 191-nation assembly next week.

"He is hoping it will be a final text," assembly spokeswoman Pragati Pascale told reporters on Wednesday. "He feels it is the best text after weeks of consultations."

TWO-THIRDS VOTE VS. SIMPLE MAJORITY

While Eliasson was not ruling out last-minute compromises, he hoped there would be none and the assembly would adopt it by consensus rather than a recorded vote, she said.

Diplomats close to the negotiations said they feared human rights backers would be put off by a major concession in requirements for selecting new members, running the risk of sinking the new body before it could get off the ground.

In the existing rights panel, candidates are typically put forward by regional groupings and often unopposed. For the new body, Annan had proposed a two-thirds vote to win a seat.

But Eliasson was forced to compromise, convinced the plan would otherwise be doomed to fail, diplomats said.

Under his plan, a separate vote would be held on each candidate, with a simple majority -- at least half the assembly's 191 members plus one -- needed to win a seat.

Eliasson also felt obliged to compromise on the size of the new body, settling on 47 while U.S. Ambassador John Bolton had pushed for no more than 30 members, in hopes a smaller council would be more nimble in responding to rights emergencies.

But the draft plan also requires every new member -- including major powers like Beijing and Washington -- undergo a rights review soon after winning a seat, a new rule supporters said might scare off some rights abusers from the start.

The draft would also enable council members to kick off troublesome members by calling a vote.

It would extend the new body's work program to three annual sessions totaling at least 10 weeks a year, with the added possibility of convening emergency sessions.

While falling short of pleas for a full-time rights body, that is longer than the current commission's six-week year.

"This does provide for a fresh start on a lot of problems that have bedeviled the (Human Rights) Commission," said one diplomat deeply involved in the negotiations.