I certainly agree with Blake's premise that the unilateral efforts of any one nation, even China, are unlikely to completely turn the tide in Myanmar. However, I think he overlooks one key aspect of China's foreign policy arsenal, its veto on the UN Security Council.
Unfortunately, for those who see multilateral economic sanctions and curbing of weapons sales as a logical move forward, China chose today to withdraw that option, stating that it is "resolutely opposed" to Security Council sanctions. This announcement no doubt came as a relief to Than Shwe, who has been concerned enough about sanctions to state that he would meet with Aung San Suu Kyi if she stopped calling for them.
*Photo:AP This morning, Blake makes a key point halfway through his post on the UN Human Rights Council and Burma. He writes:
It's important to remember that it's the 47 member states that make up the Council, not the U.N. itself, that is the source of the problem.
Yakin Erturk, the special rapporteur on violence against women for the UN Human Rights Council, was dispatched to the Democratic Republic of the Congo on a ten-day fact finding mission. Evidence of the sexual violence she encountered, which she described as "far beyond rape," was widespread--and absolutely sickening.
"Women are gang raped, often in front of their families and communities. In numerous cases, male relatives are forced at gun point to rape their own daughters, mothers or sisters," she said. After rape, many women were shot or stabbed in the genital area, and survivors told Erturk that while held as slaves by the gangs they had been forced to eat excrement or the flesh of their murdered relatives. Widespread sexual abuse in the various conflicts racking the republic -- which last year held elections hailed as marking a new era -- "seems to have become a generalized aspect of the overall oppression of women," Erturk said.Not surprisingly, the local governments do little or nothing to punish the perpetrators, despite laws on the books. Read Professor Ertuk's full statement about sexual violence in DRC.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has hailed Rwanda's abolition of capital punishment.
"Abolition in Rwanda sends a very strong message," Ms Arbour said. "A country that has suffered the ultimate crime and whose people's thirst for justice is still far from quenched has decided to forego a sanction that should have no place in any society that claims to value human rights and the inviolability of the person. Rwanda is demonstrating leadership by action."
More
From a legal stand-point, UN sponsored "ad-hoc" war crimes tribunals in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, and the former Yugoslavia have been valuable tools for testing and codifying the limits of laws that govern armed conflict. Through sheer necessity and much effort, these courts, for the past decade or so, have defined what constitutes a "war crime" punishable under international law.
Yesterday, a new category of war crime was given sound legal footing when the Special Court for Sierra Leone handed down the world's first conviction of military commanders accused of recruiting child soldiers. The court (which tries cases stemming from Sierra Leone's brutal 11-year civil war) convicted three men of recruiting and using child soldiers under the age of 16.
It's worth noting that the ruling comes near the 11-year anniversary of a similarly landmark moment: on June 28, 1996 prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia issued ground-breaking indictments in which rape was treated as a crime of war. Prosecutors won that case in early 2001, with a ruling establishing rape as a crime against humanity.
With yesterday's ruling on child soldiers, the progression of international humanitarian law steadily marches on.
A United Nations expert says that the human right situation in Somalia is getting worse: hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee their homes, others are being subject to threats, rape and violence.
Ghanim Alnajjar, the Independent Expert on the situation of Human Rights in Somalia, told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the current circumstances in the country are much worse than they were when he last briefed the 47-member body in September 2006.More
As Jessica notes below, fourteen new members have just been voted to the new Human Rights Council. The real story here is what country did not win a seat. Belarus, a repressive dictatorship in Eastern Europe, was blocked from gaining a seat on the council on Thursday when it could not muster the requisite number of votes in the General Assembly. Given Belarus' appalling human rights record that should not come as a surprise. Still, there was a chance that Belarus could have snuck in the council because Eastern Europe was guaranteed two slots on the 47 member panel, and only Belarus and Slovenia originally entered the race.
For a while, it looked as if Belarus was a shoo-in. The United States and other western countries, however, persuaded Bosnia to run and then worked behind the scenes to lobby members of the General Assembly to vote for Bosnia over Belarus. A coalition of NGO's like Human Rights Watch, the Open Society Institute, and the Democracy Coalition Project also lobbied hard to deny Belarus a seat on the Council.
According to the New York Times, the new United States Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad called the outcome "heartening." This is significant statement because just over one year ago, the United States refused to vote to create the new Council (which replaced the discredited Human Rights Commission) and eschewed running for a seat. At the time, the United States worried that there were not enough safeguards preventing a country with dismal human rights record from gaining membership. However, the vote against Belarus goes to show that when member states are sufficiently determined to keep an abusive state off of the council, the rules on voting and membership are, in fact, adequate.
At the Brookings Institution this morning, Steven Kull, editor of WorldPublicOpinion.org released the results of a new global public opinion survey on the responsibility to protect. The results are pretty striking. According to the data, there is an emerging international norm that approves United Nations intervention in the affairs of a member state if that country is failing to protect its own population from widespread human rights abuses.
Back in 2005, heads of state signed on to the principal of the responsibility to protect. This survey shows that the idea has now been endorsed by the public--in very large numbers.
Partnering with governments and non-governmental organizations, the United Nations launched The Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking yesterday.
"Slavery is a booming international trade, less obvious than 200 years ago for sure, but all around us," UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa told a ceremony in London today, which is also the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire. "Perhaps we simply prefer to close our eyes to it, as many law-abiding citizens buy the products and the services produced on the cheap by slaves," he added, noting that most victims of this modern-day slavery are women and young girls, many of whom are forced into prostitution or otherwise exploited sexually.More