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HOW THE US WANTS TO GUT THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEM
Alejandro Teitelbaum
NOVEMBER 2005 (IPS) - In its final declaration the recent United Nations Summit approved the replacement of the Human Rights Commission with a Council on Human Rights, writes Alejandro Teitelbaum, a lawyer, expert in
international relations and the Permanent Representative of the
American Association of Jurists to the UN in Geneva.
The author writes that while the precise characteristics of this
council were not defined, the United States and its supporters want it to be a very small and select body, on the pretext that its members must be democratic and respectful of human rights.
Two questions immediately arise: how will the guidelines be
selected to measure respect for human rights and democracy, and who
will decide which states have the highest ''score''?
The United States has accused the Commission of ''politicisation'': first because it monitors economic, social, and cultural rights - which in Washington's view are not rights but rather quantities that can be achieved through private initiative in a market economy. Second, according to Washington, certain of the rapporteurs of the
Commission were looking at human rights violations committed by the
U.S. in other areas of the world.
The proposal to replace the Commission with a Council, means
demolishing a larger system that is quite complete and efficient,
a central element of which is precisely the Human Rights
Commission. It is the elimination of this system that the U.S. and
its followers, governmental and non-governmental, want.
/NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, AUSTRALIA, BRAZIL, CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, POLAND, THE UNITED STATES, AND THE UNITED KINGDOM/ (END/2005)
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