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afrol News, 30 April - Yesterday, 15 new members to the UN Commission on Human Rights were elected, most of them without a vote, or "by acclamation". Representing Africa are the two "human rights strongholds" of Southern Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. From Western and Central Africa, Burkina Faso and Gabon were elected. Also the US returns to the body after a year's absence. The UN's main human rights body among other things monitors the human rights situation in countries where grave violations occur regularly. The composition of the body however is determinant to whether such monitoring will be instigated or continued. This fact was underlined last week when the mandate of the UN Special Representative for Equatorial Guinea, Gustavo Gallón, was terminated by the Commission. While human rights violations in Equatorial Guinea have only increased during the last year, Gallón in an indignant statement noted that "only the composition of the Commission" had changed during the last year. The termination of Gallón's mandate was an initiative by African members to the council, in particular Nigeria, which is deepening its economic cooperation with oil-booming Equatorial Guinea. With its new composition - adding Burkina Faso, Gabon, Swaziland and Zimbabwe - the African block now is strongly dominated by countries with ambiguous human rights records. Also the return of the United States to the Commission is noteworthy. The US, a key nation in the establishment of the Commission in 1948, for the first time lost its seat in a secret ballot last year, well before 9 September. This was attributed to the US hostility towards respecting UN decisions, such as the Kyoto Accord, the establishment of a UN war criminals court, the mine ban, etc. Ironically, US-enemy Sudan was voted into the Commission at that time. No, of course, the geopolitical situation is completely different. The UN Commission on Human Rights seems further and further undermined by the recent changes in its composition. A further threat to the Commission's future is the announced resignation of High Commissioner Mary Robinson, who has led the agency in a fearless way over the last years. Intentional human rights groups are concerned about the accelerating degeneration of this key UN agency. The US-based group Human Rights Watch yesterday stated that the new composition would most likely "deepen the crisis in which that body finds itself." - The commission has a growing number of countries with very poor human rights records, noted Joanna Weschler from the group. "We're dealing with abusers' solidarity here." She did not find much comfort in the fact that the US had been re-elected to the Commission, given current US policies. "The United States has to help get the commission back into the business of naming and shaming," said Weschler. "Otherwise, whether the United States is a member or not, the commission is going to sink into irrelevance."
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