Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, urged the UN
to bar oppressive regimes from the new Human Rights Council.

GENEVA, Nov. 22, 2005 - UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer urged the UN to prevent abusive regimes from joining its Human Rights Council, the emerging body slated to replace the largely discredited Human Rights Commission. Testifying before a special session of the Commission, UN Watch spoke on behalf of an international coalition of 38 human rights and other non-governmental organizations.
   The Commission, whose lack of credibility was candidly acknowledged this year by Kofi Annan, convened in Geneva today for a special joint session with Jan Eliasson, President of the General Assembly, and the South African and Panamanian Ambassadors to the UN, who together head the multilateral reform talks underway in New York. The gathering of states and non-governmental organizations discussed Eliassons November 3rd blueprint for the new Human Rights Council, and heard several proposals.
   "States seeking election to the Human Rights Council should be required to demonstrate, in the word of the Secretary-General, 'a solid record of commitment to the highest human rights standards'," said Neuer.  Under the current system, Cuba, North Korea and Sudan are regular members of the 53-nation Commission. The NGO coalition also proposed that:

• the Council be established as principal organ, equivalent in status to the Security Council
• candidate states be required to present a platform outlining what they seek to accomplish with their membership
• members be elected by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly (instead of the current system of regional slates, where, for example, the African group's nomination of Sudan automatically gives Khartoum the seat)
• the Council's agenda be rationalized based on the principle that every U.N. Member State is entitled to equality before the law (instead of the current system, whereby a special agenda item each year is devoted only to the censure of Israel)
  

The UN World Summit in September resolved to create a Human Rights Council, but then held back on adopting the substance of Annan's positive proposals.