Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-29-Speech-3-086"
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"en.20030129.4.3-086"2
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". – Mr President, I welcome the opportunity to respond to Parliament's resolutions on the forthcoming session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the clear indication of Parliament's country and thematic priorities for that session.
At the same time, however, the EU's decision on a resolution cannot be divorced from an assessment of the prospects for progress within the framework of the dialogue. For the first round of dialogue with Iran, the initial assessment is cautiously positive. Whilst the mandate of the special representative to Iran, Mr Maurice Copithorne, disappears with the defeat of the EU's resolution at the 58th Commission on Human Rights, last year Iran issued a standing invitation to the UN special rapporteurs, and it has announced that it will accept visits by four UN thematic rapporteurs during the course of this year. It is worth noting that Mr Copithorne was not allowed to set foot in the country to implement his mandate, illustrating that, in the face of intransigence on the part of a third country, resolutions do not always secure the progress sought.
After a year's absence, the United States returns as a member of the Commission on Human Rights. It is important for the EU and the United States to pursue their common interests in advancing human rights in the often hostile climate at the Commission on Human Rights. It is true that there are several issues on which the United States and the EU do not see eye to eye, including such fundamental advances as the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and the International Criminal Court. Those differences should neither be artificially papered over nor allowed to block meaningful cooperation.
That is why the EU and the United States have launched regular informal consultations on human rights which complement the existing human rights troika and include scrutiny of the language used in our respective resolutions and the thinking behind our approaches. The next round of consultations is scheduled for 6 February 2003.
Finally, I welcome the European Parliament's intention to send a delegation to the 59th Commission on Human Rights following last year's successful visit, which provided the opportunity for productive exchanges between the EU Heads of Mission and the Commission's delegation in Geneva.
Eleanor Roosevelt was unanimously selected as the first chairman of the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1946, which was charged with the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She might well have turned in her grave at the recent events in Geneva. The election of a Libyan chair to the primary UN body dealing with human rights has rightly prompted wonderment at how this can be. It may simply be because the election of individuals to the Commission on Human Rights bureau is based on nomination by regional groups: it was the Africans' turn to nominate, and they chose an individual from Libya. The secret vote called at the behest of the United States led to a common abstention by seven EU Member States in the Commission on Human Rights. The strong concern of many in the international community, including the EU, has rightly been registered at what is a significant blow to the credibility of the Commission on Human Rights. The performance of the new chair will undoubtedly be closely scrutinised. It is now time for the EU to focus on the initiatives it will take in the 59th session. The challenges facing the EU constitute a decidedly uphill task.
At the 58th session last year we saw the Commission of Human Rights vote down EU initiatives on Zimbabwe, Chechnya and Iran. Those results prompted a bout of soul-searching as to how the EU could improve the prospects for its country and thematic resolutions. At the UN General Assembly – a third committee in New York – several innovations were put in place by the Presidency: earlier preparation of drafts, more concise resolutions and improved burden-sharing amongst EU partners. These are important measures because they free up time for lobbying – diplomatic groundwork can, of course, make all the difference between failure and success.
It is true that the EU will need all the diplomatic finesse it can muster in Geneva when faced with an array of CHR members with poor human rights records, many disputing the legitimacy of tabling country resolutions. The EU has rightly defended the need for country resolutions alongside thematic resolutions. In many instances, those resolutions form the basis for the mandates of the special representatives and rapporteur who, when permitted by the country in question, seek to illuminate the human rights difficulties requiring attention. This constructive system is not embraced by the vast majority of the international community, with over 150 states declining to issue a standing invitation to the UN special mechanisms.
I would add that, in view of this, it is interesting to note that the African nations have agreed to have the African Union organise a peer review process which, whilst weaker and different from this, nevertheless represents a step towards arriving at a situation in which some collective measurement of performance in these areas is actually taking place.
It is undoubtedly a difficult process to determine which countries should be subject to EU action in the Commission on Human Rights. The EU has sought to develop its approach this year, with the Council Working Group on Human Rights taking soundings from all relevant geographic working groups in the Council as to which countries most warrant attention.
Discussions are set to continue at the COHOM meeting on 5 February 2003. It should be stressed that no final decisions have been taken by the EU, but initiatives on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Israeli settlements, Burma/Myanmar and Iraq have been provisionally agreed upon and other countries remain under consideration.
The European Parliament's resolution on priorities for the Commission on Human Rights will constitute an important contribution to that debate, as will the presentation of priorities by NGOs at the forthcoming session of the Human Rights Contact Group.
Clearly, the EU's approach to Iran and China at the Commission on Human Rights will attract a great deal of interest. The EU is engaged in human rights dialogues with both countries, with the primary aim of achieving concrete progress on the ground. That is why we have designed a set of clear benchmarks to measure results. As the EU guidelines on human rights dialogues make clear, and as we have made fully apparent to the Iranian government, such dialogues do not in any way preclude the tabling of resolutions in international human rights fora. That decision must be made on the basis of our assessment of the human rights situation on the ground."@en1
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