Human Rights as an Arena

AFP PHOTO/ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (right) and US Ambassador to the United Nation Nikki Haley at the US Department of State in Washington, DC, on June 19. The United States announced that it is withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council.

“We want a butterfly. We don\'t intend to put lipstick on a caterpillar and call it a success,” John Bolton, United States ambassador to the United Nations, once said as quoted by The Economist in 2006.

Bolton is now a security adviser to US.

He made the statement during the dismissal of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), which led to the formation of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) 12 years ago. The UNHRC was setup as an intergovernmental institution with 47 members for three-year terms based on territorial representation. At that time, the US and European countries agreed to dissolve the UNCHR because it was seen as too volatile against Israel and western countries, and allowed countries with poor human rights record as its members. They hoped the new body would be fairer to the West and Israel.

I am not too surprised that the US under Trump quit the UNHRC because the same person who recommended the US to quit the UNCHR is now its security adviser.

US’ exit from the UNHRC was not spontaneous. Since his campaign and early presidency, Trump has not been too interested in multilateralism. So far, the US has withdrawn from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), UN ECOSOC, nuclear deal with Iran and the Paris Agreement on climate change. The reason is simple. Multilateral politics is too expensive, unfit to his approach as a businessman who prefers a practical and swift approach. He prefers a bilateral approach, such as in the case of North Korea and may be on other cases.

Such approaches may be different from the motivation of the US to dissolve the UNCHR and quit the UNHRC, which was founded by the US and its allies.  Although it uses anti-Israel bias as its reason to withdraw from the UNHRC, I believe the US did it for the sake of domestic interest rather than for its international political hegemony.

Politically, especially at the UNHRC, the US is a partner that always supports Israel in each resolution against the country. The US’ withdrawal from the UNHRC will potentially disadvantage Israel because there will be no more powerful state that acts as its supporter. Historically, the US boycotted the UNHRC once during the rule of president George Bush but joined again during Barack Obama’s term.

The US’ withdrawal from the UNHRC opened a new theoretical interpretation, because such a phenomenon deviated from the conflict of interest tradition at the UNCHR/UNHRC between developed countries and developing countries. Such a dichotomy itself is problematic considering that developed countries do not always go against emerging countries with regards to human rights issues and emerging countries are not always solid in dealing with human rights issues.

In practice, especially when discussing a resolution or human rights situation in a country, conflicts of interest lead arguments and also association of ideas such as in liberalism. Such a contrast is visible when comparing the support/opposition of the developed countries and emerging countries related to issues on UNCHR/UNHRC resolutions regarding human rights abuses by Israel and other countries in 1992-2008.

Seligman (2011) categorized the developed countries in his research to include European Union countries and NATO members, while emerging countries are those in the Non-Alliance Movement. During that period, 89 resolutions condemned Israel, 39 of which were rejected by developed countries and mostly were supported by emerging nations.

Meanwhile, during the same period, 74 resolutions condemned human rights violations by non-Israel countries, such as Myanmar, Yugoslavia, Cuba, Congo, Iraq and Cambodia. When the resolutions targeted countries other than Israel, its pattern changed. There was a time when developed countries came together as one voice. At other times, they did not. The same goes for the emerging countries.

Simon Hug (2015) who continued Seligman’s research in 2006-2012, found a similar pattern at the UNHRC. What happened in the UNCHR also happened in the UNHRC. Israel continued to dominate discussions and resolutions. But the number of issues related to Israel actually dropped. UN Watch recorded from 2010-2016 a drop from 73 percent to 36 percent (2015) and 42 percent (2016). The decrease did not reflect improvement in Israel-Palestine conflict. In fact, it got worse.

Looking into the number of resolutions, the issues that continuously became a source of conflict between developed countries and emerging countries are human rights violations by Israel. The number of resolutions condemning Israel, which is far higher than others, unavoidably builds perception among developed countries that there is anti-Israel bias at the UNCHR/UNHRC. I myself see human rights abuse by Israel a top agenda of the UNCHR/UNHRC as a consequence of the changes in global political demography, which sees many emerging countries that are relatively independent in international politics prioritizing domestic sovereignty rather than meddling into other countries’ business. It was visible in the UNCHR before it was dissolved and made into the UNHRC.

Initially, the UNCHR, established in 1946, was part of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in charge of drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Commission has no authority to accept complaints or reports of human rights violations committed by UN member states. Such conditions are not without a cause.

AFP PHOTO/ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (right) looks on as US Ambassador to the United Nation Nikki Haley speaks at the US Department of State in Washington, DC, on June 19. The United States announced that it is withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council.

The power of the US and the West as colonial countries at the UN is still quite strong. The West consistently voted against every attempt by the Commission to place the most important human rights issues at the time as the agenda for discussion, namely racial discrimination, apartheid and the realization of the right to self-determination among colonized countries (Rajagopal 2007).

This change occurred when emerging countries started to gain independence in the 1950s. The independence includes determining independent politics. Emerging countries became members of the United Nations and began to participate in UN agencies, including those at ECOSOC, which is tasked to elect members of the UNCHR. Since then, the commission\'s agenda has begun to change, or it could be said that the agenda started to expand. At first it was only a matter of democracy and civil rights, but with the entry emerging nations, the issue included racial discrimination, colonialism, apartheid in South Africa and the Israeli occupation of Arab land.

ECOSOC then gave its mandate to the UNCHR to investigate human rights abuses through ECOSOC Resolutions 1235 (1967) and 1503 (1970). Resolution 1235 is a resolution that empowers the UNCHR to publicly name and shame the politics of a country that has human rights issues, while Resolution 1503 reinforces the commission by granting it the authority to secretly investigate the practice of human rights abuses by member countries. Investigations can only be based on communication from individuals to the commission and they are intended for information gathering (Edwards et al., 2008).

Since the resolution, political disputes and conflicts of interest within the UNCHR have become increasingly sharp. The credibility of the commission is questioned both by the West and emerging countries. The West accused the UNCHR of being the target of human rights violators to prevent the human rights agenda from expanding. The West criticized the membership of Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, China, Congo and other countries that are still considered to be disrespectful of human rights.

While developing nations accused Western countries of protecting authoritarian regimes in some countries such as in Latin America. Some analysts and observers see the disagreements over resolution as evidence of the impartiality of the UNCHR in upholding human rights.

Our stance

As a representative of Indonesia at the ASEAN Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission (AICHR), I support the statement of Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi who is regretting the withdrawal of the United States from the UNHRC.

KOMPAS/NINA SUSILO

Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi

The United States should push the council to the maximum as a platform for multilateral cooperation and to uphold the commitment of the international community to advance the protection of human rights. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is unlikely to be detached from the agenda at the UN Human Rights Council because the conflict has mutated into a proxy war among various interests. The war is no longer Palestine vs Israel, but between supporters. Indonesia as a country that encourages Palestinian independence certainly has no choice but to continually raise the Palestine issue for global attention.

Nevertheless, Indonesia also should not be "lethargic" and relax the agenda of human rights enforcement, both at the international and regional levels. The work of the UN Human Rights Council is not maximized yet and may become harder in the future, given the turbulent international political arena. We need to always be positive in looking at the problem. For example, in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, we see developed countries not always refusing to condemn human rights abuses by Israel. Of 84 resolutions condemning Israel, only 39 resolutions were rejected by developed countries, while some were supported.

Last month, even all developed countries agreed to investigate human rights abuses. This fact shows that there is potential for developed countries to move along with their developing counterparts in relation to peace efforts in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict when Indonesia can contribute.

On the other hand, Indonesia should also encourage other emerging countries that have condemned Israeli human rights violations to also condemn human rights abuses in other countries, such as in Myanmar, Yemen and Syria. Human rights violations that we need to encourage are not only related to civil and political rights, but also to the economic, social and cultural rights in which violations are generally committed by non-state actors.

Indonesia needs to be more diligent in raising human rights issues because basically human rights issues are related to Indonesia’s identity as a nation that is peace-loving, upholds quality democracy, supports equal development, ends discrimination and fear, promotes equality before the law, eradicates torture and cross-border crimes, protects labor, women, children, persons with disabilities and groups wherever they are, promotes public protection against the destruction of the living environment and much more. In an increasingly globalized global economy, human rights have become part of the cooperation between countries.

The goods sold to the global market need to meet certain human rights protection standards. We can seek alternative for the cuts of US contributions to the UN Human Rights Council in law enforcement activities, good governance, community resilience, and community empowerment programs.

What is important is that human rights efforts are no longer centered on making resolutions, preparing legal standards or reporting national efforts, but shifting to the implementation of all commitments that have been made across borders for a better and more respectful cooperation. It is there that Indonesia can again contribute to becoming an equalizing power for political movements of nations that promote narrow material interests.

Dinna Wisnu, Indonesian representative for the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights and international relations lecturer at Bina Nusantara University