new york | The United Nations’ Human Rights Commission was seen by many as unabashedly anti-Israel, dominated by pro-Palestinian and Islamic agendas.
Now supporters of Israel are wondering if its successor, the Human Rights Council, will be any different.
The new council, created March 15 as part of an ongoing U.N. reform campaign, convened for the first time last week, drawing 47 states to Geneva. The initial session was scheduled to last through June 30.
The early schedule was dominated by speeches and visits by foreign dignitaries, but objections to Israel crept onto the agenda.
Representatives from Cuba, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon all alleged Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians, according to Sybil Kessler, B’nai B’rith International’s director of U.N. affairs.
Such rhetoric was expected to increase during the “pressing issues” session, an open forum, the first opportunity delegates have to bring issues to the fore.
Kessler described a nervous, wait-and-see mood in Geneva among Israel’s backers.
During a Monday forum, sources say that 32 of the 47 floor statements touched on Israel, one of only two regional issues to make the agenda. The other was genocide in Darfur.
Sources also report that Arab countries are working behind the scenes to draft an anti-Israel resolution.
“It’s a big question if it’s the quiet before the storm or the quiet before the dawn,” she said. “We really don’t know which way the wind is blowing right now.”
It’s certainly legitimate for countries to raise issues of concern to them, but “when it comes to drawing biased resolutions that are disproportionately focused on one situation,” Kessler said, “that’s what discredits the whole process.”
Israel Singer, chairman of the World Jewish Congress’ Policy Council, stressed the need to give the rights council some time “before the baby is called stillborn.”
But some say the organization already is falling short.
Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch in Geneva, an American Jewish Committee affiliate, said that Islamic countries have a numerical stranglehold on the council, with 26 of the council’s 47 seats either held by Muslim states or considered susceptible to Muslim pressure.
Indeed, Muslim states dominate two regional groupings, holding 16 of the 26 seats allotted to Africa and Asia. With much of the council’s decision-making done by deliberation in such groupings, Islamic representatives will exert considerable influence, Neuer explained.
Questions about the council’s credibility run deeper.
Like its predecessor, the council has doled out seats to nations with dubious human rights records, such as China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan.
Though Neuer credited the council for blocking certain human-rights abusers, such as Sudan and Libya — both of which sat on the old commission — he expressed concern over the fact that nearly half of the council’s new members, by his calculation, don’t meet democratic standards.
The council does represent some progress, however. At a press conference in New York earlier this month, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said, “I hope we are not going to see a situation where the Human Rights Council focuses on Israel, but not on the others.”
Several countries amplified his message in the opening days of the council session.
With the United States declining to run for a seat, Kessler expressed the hope that Western countries on the council, led by European Union members, would “draw a red line around where they stand when it comes to Israel.”
The U.S. voted against the resolution creating the council because of a lack of “sufficient confidence in this text to be able to say that the HRC would be better than its predecessor,” America’s U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, said.
Watchdog groups hope the body’s new “universal-review” mechanism, by which all countries are to be judged by the same yardstick, will be realized in practice.
Council members will be the first countries subject to the council’s universal periodic review, which will assess how well states are fulfilling their human-rights commitments.
Kessler said spillover from the recent decision, also in Geneva, to admit Israel to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement could affect the council’s proceedings.
Shai Franklin, director of international organizations for the World Jewish Congress, said Jewish groups are trying to harness that momentum.
He added that the results of the effort would become clearer in September, when the rights council convenes for its second meeting and is slated to take up a more substantive agenda.