UN rights Council remains timid on Darfur – group
UN rights Council remains timid on Darfur – group
March 28, 2008 (Geneva) – A rights group lashed out at UN Human Rights body for its failure to take strong resolutions against states responsible for serious human rights violations in its session ending today. Although the council adopted a disturbingly weak resolution on Darfur, Human Rights Watch said today.
The UN Human Rights Council was set up two years ago to replace the U.N. Human Rights Commission, which was widely criticised for failing to overcome political alliances and take a strong stand on issues including China’s rights record.
“The Human Rights Council again favored platitudes and politics over steps that could actually protect people,” said Juliette de Rivero, Geneva advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The council should care more about saving lives, and less about letting governments save face.”
The council also called on Sudan to tackle human rights violations in the Darfur region and prosecute those responsible for abuses. But the African-sponsored resolution adopted by consensus on Thursday fell short of activists’ demands for a strong rebuke of Khartoum.
“The resolution does not take account at all of the fact that in February there was an offensive in West Darfur in which hundreds of civilians lost their lives,” Hicks said.
While the council has bent over backwards to cooperate with states facing criticism, those states have unsurprisingly taken advantage of the council’s timidness by continuing their abusive practices.
The council’s engagement on Darfur highlights its failure to adopt strong measures. Although Sudanese government troops and “Janjaweed” militia have flouted Security Council resolutions and Sudan’s obligations under international law by carrying out a series of attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians since February 8, 2008, the council shockingly adopted a resolution on March 27 that merely “takes note with interest of [Sudan’s] engagement with the international community on human rights issues.”
The resolution expressed concern that “for various reasons” measures taken by Sudan have “not yet led to the desired positive impact on the ground” – failing to point out that it was the Sudanese government’s own actions that have blocked such change, as determined by a Group of Experts appointed by the council.