| London
-- The furor in Washington over the ouster of the
United States from the United Nations Commission
on Human Rights should not really have taken anyone
by surprise, especially General Colin Powell and
his staff at the Department of State. The warning
signals have been loud and clear for months already
like political graffiti daubed all over the walls
of the UN.
At
a series of recent seminars held by the UN, State
Department lawyers, have consistently opposed a number
of resolutions aimed at establishing the right to
a roof over one’s head, the right to a square
meal, access to basic health care or education, to
name a few, as human rights. Washington’s representatives
sought to water down the resolutions, giving its
enemies, and its allies, the impression that America
alone has the monopoly when it comes to defining
human rights.
From across the Atlantic and beyond, especially
among poorer nations, it was almost obvious
that Washington would lose its seat either
for turning a blind eye to new proposals on
rights or for actively opposing key resolutions
on so-called economic, social and cultural
rights.
At a meeting in February this year of the
UN Commission on Human Settlements, also known
as Habitat, in Nairobi, Kenya. A senior State
Department lawyer called a UN human rights
official to one side and told him bluntly the
U.S. government would prefer it if he did not
mention housing as a right, let alone as a
human right in his address to delegates.
Miloon Kothari,
the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate
Housing under the UN
Commission on Human Rights, was flabbergasted: “It
made me wonder whether they would sabotage
or weaken this very important issue at the
Habitat summit in New York next month.” The
June 6-8 summit will review progress since
the last Habitat summit in Istanbul five years
ago. He decided to ignore the advice. He told
his audience that the right to adequate housing
had been recognized as a “cornerstone,
fundamental right” in the UN human rights
system. Realization of that right, he said,
remained far from a reality for the majority
of poor and vulnerable people around the world.
Kothari added: “A
member of the U.S. delegation approached
me again, this time after
my speech. Bristling with anger, he told me
in front of other delegates that I was exceeding
my mandate... It was a bullying and arrogant
approach and I said I was upholding the agenda.”
When this reporter
at the time asked the leader of the U.S.
delegation, E. Michael Southwick,
a former U.S. Ambassador to Kenya who is now
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State at the
Bureau of International Organization Affairs
at the State Department, for his side of the
story, he was furious. “Mr. Kothari was
very out of line here,” he said. “There
is no international definition of a right to
housing, but a right to an adequate standard
of living. Is there a legally enforced right
to housing? Can you sue to get it? We say it
is important to have political rights so that
you can get democracy and civil rights and
good government.”
U.S.-led arguments
over the semantics dragged on for nearly
six hours during closed hearings
at the forum, and eventually a vote was called.
The U.S. government, ironically backed by two
of its human rights target nations, China and
Iran, lost that one. But the meeting ended
with its European allies expressing irritation
at Washington’s attitude.
Such meetings do not benefit from the kind
media attention devoted to summit conferences.
Thus last month, when the Commission on Human
Rights held its 57th session at its headquarters
in Geneva, the U.S., according to officials
present, was the only one of the 53 governments
in the commission to vote against a resolution
on the right to food. This too drew irritation
from its allies, especially in Western Europe.
But the affair went virtually unreported.
“It is on the so-called ESC or economic,
social and cultural rights, such as adequate
shelter and food, housing, the right to education,
womens’ rights, food, the right to development,
where the U.S. government, much to the concern
of its friends and enemies alike, seems to
take an ideological stand,” said a UN
official in Geneva. “It is this attitude
which America’s friends find so frustrating.”
Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights was described as shocked at the
vote against America. She had after all, given
Washington plenty of advance notice on feelings
about its attitude in the UN human rights community.
At a speech
in New York in January, she said: “The
United Nations needs America's full engagement
with our programs and activities. Indeed it
would be unthinkable for the United Nations
to try to carry out its vital work without
the strong involvement of the richest and most
powerful country in the world. At the same
time, I believe that this country also needs
the United Nations.”
Issues like torture or arbitrary detention,
or press freedom are usually addressed in detail
by U.S. embassies around the world in the annual
State Department report on human rights. But
Robinson said the denial of food, housing or
education also had to be addressed.
In what was
described by her office as a message to the
new administration, she added: “The
attitude of some towards economic, social and
cultural rights has at times been lukewarm
or even downright hostile. I think that they
should reconsider their approach. Certainly
it was the full range of rights which Eleanor
Roosevelt had in mind during the drafting of
the Universal Declaration. The arguments in
favor are even stronger today with the Cold
War over and a less politicized agenda.”
She then cited
in detail three steps Washington could take
to signal its continuing support.
She asked that it ratify three of the UN’s
six core human rights treaties: The 1979 Convention
on the Elimination of Discrimination Against
Women; the Convention on the Rights of the
Child; and the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights.
“I would urge the people of the United
States to consider the many advantages that
ratification would bring, both nationally,
by improving the recognition and protection
of all human rights, and internationally, by
enabling the United States to continue to play
a central role in the championing of human
rights around the world,” she said.
The reactions
of President Bush himself, and indeed some
members of Congress to America’s
rejection from the commission during the past
10 days make one wonder whether anyone in official
Washington had heard or read her speech. It
was delivered to delegates at the World Affairs
Councils of America conference on “reconnecting
America and the United Nations”.
That “connection” seems
to be lost not only on Washington, but also
on the
American public at large. According to a 1997
poll, much cited in the corridors of the United
Nations, only 8 percent of Americans said they
had heard of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. Religious texts apart, the UN claims
it to be the most translated document in the
world, and a beacon of hope to people who do
not live in nations which guarantee the same
rights as America.
For Europe
too, the frustration with Washington over
what the Paris daily, Le Monde, this week
called “American unilateralism”,
is what most likely served to give the final
push. The European complaints have gone beyond
the human rights issues to the appointment
of new ambassadors in some key capitals who
speak only English, Washington’s refusal
to ratify the international ban against landmines,
the Bush Administration’s stance on global
warming, the International Criminal Tribunal
in The Hague, cheaper anti-AIDS drugs, and
the new missile shield. As for rights, the
democracies in the European Union said in a
letter to Washington just last week they were “deeply
concerned” about the high number of executions
in the United States.
If the American
people want human rights implemented around
the world, their leaders have to come
forward as did the Roosevelt Administration
after World War II. Officials in Robinson’s
office are not only concerned at “blackmail” by
Congress over future funding for the UN, but
they say it is time to close the gulf between
rhetoric and reality.
Kothari sees the first test coming in New
York next month, when Washington will be asked
again at the Habitat summit to pledge itself
on the right to adequate shelter. The next
test will come in August in South Africa, where
the UN hopes Washington will play a leading
role at another major UN conference, the Durban
World Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.
Statistics
cited by the UN show that minorities in America’s major cities will become
the new majority within the next 50 years as
the nation currently experiences the largest
wave of immigration since the turn of the last
century. The vote against America may have
been “outrageous”, as President
Bush said, but no-one should be surprised.
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