Human Rights

WaPo: "Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia won seats on the new U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday despite their poor human rights records, but two rights abusers - Iran and Venezuela - were defeated. Human rights groups said they were generally pleased with the 47 members elected to the council, which will replace the highly politicized Human Rights Commission. It was discredited in recent years because some countries with terrible rights records used their membership to protect one another from condemnation. "The spoiler governments, the governments that have a history of trying to undermine the protection of human rights through their membership on the old commission are now a significantly reduced minority when it comes to the council," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "That doesn't guarantee that the council will be a success, but it is a step in the right direction."

"The number of refugees worldwide is at a 25-year low, but a growing number of displaced people are suffering under tighter asylum restrictions and increased fears of terrorism, the UN Refugee Agency said Wednesday. Fewer armed conflicts and large-scale repatriations to countries such as Afghanistan and Sierra Leone reduced the number of refugees to 9.2 million in 2004, compared with 18 million in 1992, according to the United Nations report "State of the World's Refugees: Human Displacement in the New Millennium." But growing numbers of displaced people who fall outside the protections of the UN Refugee Convention -- an estimated 175 million -- are facing precarious futures amid increased security threats, growing intolerance and declines in donations, said Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees." [Full story]

"The head of the U.N. mission's human rights unit in Haiti accused judicial officials and the U.S.-backed interim government on Thursday of illegally detaining most of the 4,000 people behind bars in the country.

"Warning that the proposed Human Rights Council could "unravel" if Member States made the wrong moves in the ongoing negotiations over the body, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today that the Council was of utmost importance to all nations and the stakes in the ongoing debate were "very high." Mr. Annan told reporters that he was "chagrined" by reports that Washington opposed the proposed text to set up the Council, aimed at replacing the much-criticized Human Rights Commission, but said that this was not an issue about isolating the United States from the rest of the world and he repeated his call for an agreement as soon as possible."

Jan Eliasson "Seeking to dramatically bolster the protection of human rights around the world, the President of the United Nations General Assembly today unveiled (pdf) the draft blueprint for a new Human Rights Council with higher status and greater accountability than the much-criticized Human Rights Commission that meets yearly in Geneva. "While we will build on the positive achievements and best practices of the Commission, some of the elements we are considering will make the Human Rights Council a truly new and different body - a fresh start," Jan Eliasson of Sweden said in introducing the draft resolution for the body, which was called for by world leaders at the September 2005 summit in New York." [Read more] Also see: New UN rights Council Put Forward

"A United Nations inquiry has called for the immediate closure of America's Guantanamo Bay detention centre and the prosecution of officers and politicians "up to the highest level" who are accused of torturing detainees.

"The United Nations' refugee agency has received assurances from Egypt that Sudanese refugees would not be deported to Sudan despite media reports to the contrary, a spokesperson for the agency said on Tuesday. Egypt's state owned Al-Ahram newspaper said in Tuesday's edition that an unspecified number of refugees were being held in a military camp near Cairo airport in preparation for deportation within two days." [More}

NYT: "Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday vigorously defended Louise Arbour, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, after comments she made about detention and torture came under criticism from John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador. "The secretary general has absolutely no disagreement with the statement she made yesterday, and he sees no reason to object to any of it," said Mr. Annan's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric. In an unusual instance of a secretary general's singling out an individual envoy for critical comment, Mr. Annan said he was seeking a meeting with Mr. Bolton to make his point in person."

"The U.S.-led fight against terrorism is eroding the time-honored international prohibition of torture and other forms of cruel or degrading treatment of prisoners, the top U.N. human rights official said Wednesday in a statement commemorating Human Rights Day. Louise Arbour, the high commissioner for human rights at the United Nations, presented the most forceful criticism to date of U.S. detention policies by a senior U.N. official, asserting that holding suspects incommunicado in itself amounts to torture." [More] Blogs covering the story: Andrew Sullivan Swords into Plowshares Talking Points Memo The Heretik The Corner Wise Law Blog