HRC: CONGRESSIONAL STAFFDEL MEETS OHCHR, COUNCIL

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 GENEVA 003134

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR IO/RHS, DRL/MLGA

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM UNHRC UN
SUBJECT: HRC: CONGRESSIONAL STAFFDEL MEETS OHCHR, COUNCIL
PRESIDENT, DELEGATIONS, AND NGOS

SUMMARY
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1. Congressional staffers for the outgoing and incoming
chairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House
International Relations Committee were in Geneva Nov. 27-Dec.
1, 2006 to discuss the state of the Human Rights Council
(HRC) with key players from the diplomatic community, United
Nations, and NGOs. Almost all, including the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights and the HRC President, urged
the United States to run for a Council seat. Western
diplomats said the Council was headed in the wrong direction
and was a captive of the Organization of the Islamic
Conference (OIC) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
However, no one was ready to write off the Council just yet.
Most urged finding ways to make it work, including by the new
Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, improving the
quality of membership, and weakening the hold of blocs.
Staff delegates were Paul Foldi (Sen. Lugar); Jennifer Simon
(Sen. Biden); Barton Forsyth (Rep. Hyde); and David Killion
(Rep. Lantos). END SUMMARY.

UN High Commissioner Louise Arbour
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2. Arbour said it was too early to write off the HRC and
encouraged the U.S. to run for a Council seat since a more
authoritative intergovernmental body was needed. Though the
prevailing mood in the Council was against country
resolutions, she believed that the UPR process could
represent a modest improvement if sufficiently robust and
frequent. Also, since many member states considered
resolutions on Israel to be thematic (occupation),Arbour
said Council members could consider taking up Sudan under the
theme of armed conflict, though an obstacle to this approach
was U.S. resistance to consideration of humanitarian law
issues. (NOTE: Subsequent to this meeting, a Special Session
on Sudan was called for December 12. END NOTE.) Arbour said
developed countries needed to listen to developing states on
issues of cultural, economic, and social rights. Arbour
cautioned that the call to reduce voluntary contributions
would offset the doubling of OHCHR,s budget over the next
five years, which would lead to zero budget growth just when
growth was needed. Arbour made her usual appeal for
unearmarked funds, saying OHCHR was the best investment in
human rights work.

HRC President Luis Alfonso de Alba (Mexico)
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3. De Alba said the Council got off to a bad start and had
numerous problems, notably its composition. He presented
himself as almost powerless, saying the Council had no tools
or rules of procedure, and that he did not even have the
authority to call meetings. However, he encouraged a long
view of what the Council would look like in five years rather
than six months. De Alba said discussion about country
resolutions was useless, though UPR could be used as a basis
for them. As far as accommodating NGOs, de Alba said he
suggested they organize and determine which should speak on
which issues and establish procedures for their
participation. De Alba said it was the Western countries,
desire for a low threshold for calling special sessions that
made it easy for the OIC to call so many special sessions on
the Middle East. He cautioned that calling a special session
on Sudan without having the votes to pass a resolution could
be a real setback (NOTE: A consensus resolution on Darfur
passed on Dec. 13. END NOTE.),and suggested that the EU and
GRULAC coordinate and build on the votes obtained on the EU
amendments to the African Group's Sudan resolution tabled at
the second HRC regular session.

Geneva-based Missions
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4. Staffers met with representatives from Canada, the UK,
Pakistan, Ghana, Guatemala, South Africa, and Israel. All
expressed varying levels of concern for the Council.
Canadian Deputy PermRep Paul Meyer said, in the broader
context of UN reform, that putting human rights on a par with
security and development in the UN system was a great
achievement. He stressed the need to build cross-regional
coalitions to fight off the existing regional blocs. He
added that country resolutions were increasingly viewed as
ineffective in addressing human rights issues -- a view
strongly shared by most developing countries.


5. Guatemalan Counselor Stephanie Hochstetter suggested
developing a two-tiered system that would include technical

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assistance and country resolutions based on UPR conclusions
depending on the gravity of a country's human rights
violations. Guatemala's own experience with HRC special
procedures has not been good, according to Hochstetter.
While readily acknowledging Guatemala's human rights
problems, she said her country simply did not have the
capacity to handle the multiple visits, reports, and other
obligations, so it was a serious disincentive for developing
world countries to cooperate with the UN's human rights
apparatus.


6. UK PermRep Nick Thorne expressed frustration over the
European Union's (EU) fixation on maintaining common
positions. He blamed the Finnish presidency for failing to
speak on issues of importance. (NOTE: Germany takes over on
Jan. 1, 2007. END NOTE.) He cited outside factors as the
driving force behind Pakistan (OIC),Algeria (African Group,
OIC),and Egypt's (African Group, OIC) desire to lead blocs
on human rights discussions in Geneva. He especially focused
on Pakistan, saying it was driven by a desire to dominate its
region and keep rival India in check. Both Meyer and Thorne
said the Community of Democracies would be ineffective in
caucusing at the HRC, the latter adding that the group's
image was tarnished after U.S. efforts to use it to mobilize
votes on Cuba-related resolutions.


7. Pakistan's Deputy PermRep Tehmina Janjua -- and later at
a lunch, Pakistani PermRep and OIC human rights coordinator
Masood Khan -- claimed that Pakistan was actually a
moderating influence on the OIC, and that if it were not
leading the OIC a more radical country would do so.
Ambassador Khan said that Pakistan only kept the OIC
coordinating job in Geneva because nobody else wanted it and,
in any case, the OIC,s importance in the Council was
exaggerated. When questioned by staffdel about the three
anti-Israel special sessions to date, Khan recited an
abbreviated and creative version of the events that led to
the sessions and of the OIC's behavior. Pakistani Human
Rights Director Shafqat Ali Khan contended that it was
Western targeting of OIC countries with human rights
instruments and Western silence on atrocities towards Muslims
(such as a massacre of Muslim worshippers in India) that had
unified OIC countries and made them such a strong force.


8. Ghana Deputy PermRep Paul Aryene blamed the situation in
the Council on mutual suspicion among Council members. Even
among the African Group itself, many members were weary of
the current leadership. He said change was possible though
it would take time. Aryene identified Zambia and non-members
Guinea and Lesotho as African Group countries that might be
counted on to vote responsibly. On Israel, he suggested
that, rather than wait to see what the OIC came up with, the
U.S. should take the initiative and negotiate texts ahead of
time.


9. Pitso Montwedi, South African Chief Directorate for Human
Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, acknowledged there was a
divide between Western and developing countries over the
breadth of human rights issues. Developing countries viewed
poverty, deprivation, and the like as human rights issues
while Western countries felt these issues belonged in other
fora. Montwedi criticized country resolutions, and said what
developing countries really needed was technical assistance
to improve their human rights situations. He credited the
international embargo on South Africa during the apartheid
era for helping South Africa rather than country-specific
human rights resolutions.


10. Israeli PermRep Itzhak Levanon was unimpressed with the
Council. He said that although Canada had shown real
backbone on the Council by calling for votes on anti-Israel
resolutions, Israel would prefer to know that it could rely
on the U.S. Levanon held that the best chance to change the
Council's direction lay in getting the right countries
elected. He saw some frustration about the direction of the
Council from countries such as Guatemala, Ghana, and Cameroon
-- an attitude that might be utilized to counter the OIC
stranglehold. Asked what incentives such countries might
have for leaning in the other direction, Levanon said that,
if the U.S. were a member, it could provide them cover.

NGO Roundtable
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11. During a Mission-organized NGO roundtable, the group met
with representatives from Amnesty International, Human Rights
Watch, International Service for Human Rights, UN Watch, the
Quaker UN Office, and the Baha'i Community. Most were
critical of the U.S. choice not to run for the Council, but

GENEVA 00003134 003 OF 003


welcomed U.S. engagement as an observer in the Council. All
said the U.S. should run for the Council next year. Several
participants criticized the U.S. focus on country
resolutions, and some bristled at one staffer's reference to
"bad guys." One participant charged that it was this type of
approach that had brought the "bad guys" together. Another
participant said the U.S. position on economic, social and
cultural rights was not helpful, noting how other countries
that had previously opposed considering these issues under
the human rights rubric (e.g., UK and Australia) had
eventually changed their views. The Amnesty International
representative observed that the worst members of the Council
were America's "best mates" (Pakistan and Egypt) and wondered
why the U.S. could not bring them into line. When asked
about prospects for peeling members off blocs, a participant
cautioned that this might apply also to the EU, the most
rigid voting bloc in the Council.


12. In a separate meeting, UN Watch Executive Director
Hillel Neuer said the new Council was worse than the
Commission, dominated by power blocs (especially the OIC),
and intensely anti-Israel. He said various EU members were
sensitive to their Muslim populations and reluctant to
confront the OIC. Neuer saw the UPR as a chance to move the
Council away from its fixation on Israel. However, UPR could
go in the wrong direction if criteria for review accounted
for cultural and religious factors, and/or if the information
base for review was a simple questionnaire answered by the
country under review. Despite the Council's shortcomings,
Neuer held, it was better for the U.S. to be a member, inside
and effective, rather than outside and merely "engaged."

TICHENOR