EU AMBASSADORS TAKE STOCK OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L GENEVA 000672 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/28/2018 TAGS: PHUM PREL UNHRC SUBJECT: EU AMBASSADORS TAKE STOCK OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Classified By: AMBASSADOR WARREN W. TICHENOR. REASONS: 1.4 (B/D). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The French EU presidency held a July 18 "retreat" near Geneva to allow EU ambassadors to hash out their assessments, in a closed session, of the UN Human Rights Council. Several of the participants have told us that the general view was that the Council has serious problems and that the EU is "under siege." None of the EU participants, however, favored disengagement from that body, and all regretted that the U.S. had done so. Several participants worried that the EU too often overstepped its "red lines," making excessive concessions to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC),but few ideas surfaced on how to remedy this. The session produced agreement that the upcoming review of the Council would be pivotal and that the EU needed to prepare for it, but the general view was that it could not take place before 2011. The meeting showed that the EU is troubled by how the Council is developing but has few new ideas for how to fix it. This opens an opportunity for the U.S. to shape EU thinking about next steps. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (SBU) In what is widely agreed to be a first for the EU presidency in Geneva, the French delegation organized a retreat on July 18 for all EU ambassadors (or charges) to the Human Rights Council. The French felt the need to exchange assessments, within the relative privacy of a retreat, about what had transpired in the Council and to think ahead about how to remedy that body's shortcomings. EU delegations saw the initiative as a positive step, and some described it to us as demonstrating that the French would play an activist role in the Council during their EU presidency. ASSESSMENTS OF THE COUNCIL: MOSTLY NEGATIVE -------------- ¶3. (C) Assessments of the Council were generally negative, and participants spoke of the need for a "new approach," we were told. Participants noted a few positives, such as the Universal Periodic Review, which, UK Ambassador Peter Gooderham told Ambassador Tichenor, was seen as generally satisfactory. Participants, however, recognized UPR as being insufficiently hard-hitting regarding serious human rights violators and as lacking in effective follow-up mechanisms. Some participants took comfort from the fact that the Council had moved from its organizational focus to addressing substantive issues more frequently. Even those who highlighted such modest benefits, however, believed that these were significantly outweighed by the Council's major flaws, notably over-politicization and bloc voting, which had resulted in important setbacks such as on freedom of expression and on country mandates. According to Gooderham, EU countries also felt "beleaguered" and "under siege" in the Council. Denmark's Ambassador, Marie-Louise Overvad, told Ambassador Tichenor that she was among those most critical of the Council; the UK staked out a similar position in the meeting. ¶4. (C) Some participants, including Romanian Ambassador (and until recently, Council President) Doru Costea, placed emphasis on the Council's bad image. Worrying that EU ambassadors did not attend Council sessions frequently enough and that this both implied lack of EU commitment to the body and ceded the field to the OIC, a few participants suggested more regular and frequent participation by EU ambassadors at sessions, we were told. ¶5. (C) Beyond that, participants mostly offered the usual ideas for countering the Council's negative trends. They placed particular emphasis on reaching out to moderates in other regional groups, and said this should be the subject of a more concerted effort in the period ahead. Particularly on country-specific resolutions and on country mandates, it is essential to lock in the support of other countries in the region, participants agreed. Among the more novel ideas was the UK's plan to provide the Council with interim updates on its implementation of UPR recommendations, which it hoped would be a model for others to do so as well. Dutch Ambassador Boudewijn van Eenannaam told Ambassador Tichenor that, at the meeting, he advocated for holding special sessions even if these did not always produce a Council resolution, because that would at least demonstrate that the Council was trying to tackle difficult issues. ASSESSMENTS OF THE EU: BLURRING ITS REDLINES -------------- ¶6. (C) In assessing the EU's work in the Council, many participants worried about the tendency to disregard redlines, our interlocutors told us. By giving ground on fundamental principles, the EU was neither serving the cause of human rights nor helping the image of the Council. That said, however, several participants at the session also noted the imperative to take "political realities" into account. Describing the session to Ambassador Tichenor, the head of the EU's Liaison Office, Ambassador Dimitris Iliopoulos, noted the concerns about diluting the redlines but contended that the EU sometimes had to make short-term concessions to preserve longer-term dialogue with the OIC, regional groups and others. ¶7. (C) With regard to how the EU operated in the Council, several participants stressed that EU views should be articulated not only by the presidency but by other members as well. Whereas other African Group members often echoed the views of Egypt in its capacity as African Group head, for example, EU delegations had been less active in echoing the views of Slovenia, in its EU presidency capacity, in the last two sessions, participants observed. CONCERNS ABOUT USG DISENGAGEMENT -------------- ¶8. (C) The EU ambassadors were uniformly disappointed and concerned by the U.S. decision to disengage from the Council, our interlocutors reported. The U.S. voice was needed in the Council, participants commented, in order to help counter the negative trends. The EU and its members should thus try to get the USG to re-engage to the extent possible, some ambassadors said. According to the UK's Gooderham, efforts to do so would be on-going. ¶9. (C) Nonetheless, all our interlocutors reported that the participants offered no ideas on how to convince the U.S. to re-engage. Furthermore, none gave any serious indication that they might follow the U.S. lead by disengaging, Gooderham and others told us. REVIEW OF THE COUNCIL: BADLY NEEDED; NOT BEFORE 2011 -------------- -------------- ¶10. (C) All participants agreed the review of the Council, scheduled to take place no later than five years after its establishment, would be a critical moment. According to Gooderham, several EU ambassadors held out hope that things might get somewhat better under the Council's new president and with a new High Commissioner for Human Rights. Because both those positions would be held by Africans, this might possibly temper some of African governments' worst instincts in the Council, it was hoped, although even in those circumstances, the review would be important. There were few concrete ideas, however, about what specific reform proposals the EU might put forth. ¶11. (C) Participants differed over whether the review could take place earlier than 2011, as currently scheduled. According to Iliopoulos, the EU is not likely to reach consensus on anything earlier than that date, however. COMMENT -------------- ¶12. (C) From the readouts we have received, it is clear that EU members all recognize that the Council is badly flawed, despite different opinions over exactly how badly the body is functioning. Similarly, there is widespread disappointment and concern about U.S. disengagement. At the same time, the session suggested that at least for now, EU ambassadors have few concrete ideas on how to try to reform the Council. In our view, this creates an opportunity for the U.S. to make an early impact on EU thinking, possibly coalescing around calls to accelerate the mandated review and to refocus the Council on the high ideals upon which it was founded but which it has thus far fallen so short in defending. TICHENOR