World NGOs seek end to blocs in U.N. rights council

By Robert Evans

GENEVA (Reuters) - Human rights groupings around the world are calling for an end to the bloc system in the United Nations main rights forum which they say enables countries guilty of gross abuses to sit on the body.

In an appeal sent to the 47 governments on the Human Rights Council, a total of 74 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) also urge an end to the election of its members by regional slates and make sure that every seat is open to contest.

"We call on all U.N. member states to bring vote trading arrangements and uncompetitive elections for the council to an end ... The credibility of the council and its ability to respond to human rights violations hang in the balance," the NGOs declared.

Their statement, issued through the New York-based Human Rights Watch, came a month before the council, which in 2006 replaced the old and much criticised human rights commission, is due to open its autumn session in Geneva.

Many diplomats and analysts say the council is effectively dominated by a bloc of developing countries with regular support from Russia, China and Cuba who all shield each other from any substantive criticism or censure.

Other members of the body, joined by the United States this year after a three-year boycott, whose records are often criticised by international rights organisations are Egypt, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

"DISTORTED SOLIDAIRY"

When first mooted by then U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the new council was to be composed of nations with at least a relatively clean record, elected on the basis of their contribution "to promotion and protection of human rights".

But countries in the U.N. General Assembly, where its composition is determined, decided to appoint council members on the basis of lists proposed by the regional groupings in the world body, with normally only one candidate for each seat.

And in return for supporting their regional candidates, diplomats say, countries outside the council get protection from criticism within it, as did Sri Lanka over its handling of Tamil refugees at the end of its civil war this year.

Within the overall majority, groups of countries with specific interests, like the 13 council members who also belong to the 56-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), can push their own agenda knowing they have the votes for it.

This has led to ironic outcomes with, for example, the envoys of atheistic China and Cuba voting for resolutions condemning "defamation of religion", while OIC members refrain from raising Beijing's treatment of its own Muslims and refuse to back Western countries which might like it discussed.

Human rights NGOs in developing countries with liberal systems say this leads their governments to give comfort to others that abuse human rights, in what one Brazilian group described as "a distorted sense of Third World solidarity."

Among signatories to the appeal, which diplomats said was unlikely to be heeded by the council majority, were NGOs in South Africa, Egypt, India, Venezuela, Pakistan, Malaysia, Senegal and Zimbabwe, as well as in Western countries.