NGOs Urge Major Changes to Human Rights Council Draft
Groups Urge Removal of “Anti-NGO Clause” and Reinstatement of Annan’s 2/3 Threshold for Member Elections

Geneva, Mar. 2, 2006 – Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) today called on United Nations member states to make three key changes to the blueprint for a new Human Rights Council. (See full text of Joint NGO Statement below.)

A joint statement released today in Geneva by UN Watch, the Italy-based Transnational Radical Party and an international coalition of ten other NGOs urged the reinstatement of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's original requirement that candidates for Council seats be elected by no less than two-thirds of member states in the General Assembly.

The two-thirds threshold was at the core of the Annan plan of March 2005, which proposed replacing the discredited human rights commission with a new body that would exclude the most notorious human rights offenders. In recent years, members have included Sudan, Libya, Zimbabwe and Cuba.

The text proposed last week by General Assembly President Jan Eliasson would elect members by an absolute majority of the Assembly's 191 members.  "Yet when the Assembly was asked just 3 months ago to condemn Sudan for its massive human rights violations, no more than 79 countries were willing to do so, and the resolution failed," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch .  "So how can we expect a majority to suddenly support that country's exclusion?"

According to Neuer, the U.N.'s latest text fails to remedy the commission's "fatal flaw" -- its dubious membership.  "When the council created by this draft meets for the first time in Geneva, the faces around the table will look awfully familiar. Mr. Annan called for radical surgery to revive the discredited human rights commission; this draft offers to give two aspirins and wheel the patient back onto the street," said Neuer.

Today's NGO statement also called for the removal of nine words from the draft that "would place non-governmental organizations under the constant threat of restrictions on their ability to speak out freely at the Council for human rights victims."  The U.N. text would give member states the power to decide what constitutes "the most effective contribution" of NGOs and other observers at the new council.

According to Neuer, "this clause is a shocking incursion against the freedom of NGOs to speak out at the U.N. for victims of human rights violations committed by any country." Neuer said the proposed restriction was "part and parcel of the relentless attempts by certain U.N. members to curb NGO participation, and is intended as a sword against our historic right to participate fully at U.N. human rights proceedings." In recent years, several NGOs, including Reporters Sans Frontières and the Transnational Radical Party, were threatened with suspension by member states upset over criticism of their human rights records.

Finally, the NGOs objected to a provision in the preamble that imposes special demands on the media to respect religion.  "Contrary to previous UN statements on the matter, the text omits any balancing language in favor of freedom of speech or freedom of the press," the statement said.  "Several other UN mechanisms are dealing with this issue and there is no reason for its inclusion in this text.  The clause is an attempt to appease the violent agitators who burned buildings and killed innocent people with a grant of international legitimacy."

Neuer said that the democracies and human rights groups should not feel pressured by artificial deadlines such as the upcoming commission session in March.  "It took UN Watch twelve years for our reforms to be endorsed by the U.N. Secretary-General. We're willing to wait another few days or weeks to get the reform that human rights victims deserve."