Human Rights and UNHRC

Human rights are rights we have simply because we exist as human beings – they are not granted by any state. These universal rights are inherent to us all, regardless of nationality, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status. They range from the most fundamental – the right to life – to those that make life worth living, such as the rights to food, education, work, health, and liberty

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, was the first legal document to set out the fundamental human rights to be universally protected.

Importance of HRC

• Assessing the human rights records of all UN Member States  through the Universal Periodic Review.
• Appointing independent experts (known as “Special Procedures”) to review human rights violations and examine and further global human rights issues.
• Examining complaints from victims of human rights violations
• Promote human rights education and learning
• Serve as a forum for dialogue on thematic issues on all human rights
• Make recommendations to the General Assembly for further development of international law in human rights;
• Promote the full implementation of human rights obligations undertaken by States and follow-up to the goals and commitments

Issue with UNHRC

• Membership Criteria: commit to the highest standards of human rights, and states should take into account a nominee’s human rights record when voting. Both of these rules are basically unenforceable
• Geographical quota system: Many times, countries have run unopposed after regional groups nominated the exact number of countries required to fill Council vacancies, thus, limit the number of choices and guarantee the election of nominated members regardless of their human rights records
• Tainted democracies: Most of the members elected in HRC have poor records in certain civil and political rights criteria, such as press freedom
• Secret Ballot System: may make it easier for countries with questionable human rights records to be elected to the Council.
• Politicisation of the HRC: As members are representatives of their governments, the Human Rights Council is a highly politicised body, like its predecessor. State governments are political constructs, so any institution made up of government representatives is inevitably political too.
• Israel and the HRC: Some experts claim it’s biased against Israel. It has aimed a disproportionate number of resolutions against that country.

Human rights are often described as Important pillar of the UN. More needs to be done to ensure that substantive outcomes in the Council are catalysts for change, especially at the national level, where most improvements to human rights protection must be made.