Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-06-Speech-3-109"
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"en.20070606.14.3-109"2
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".
Mr President, President-in-Office Günter Gloser, ladies and gentlemen, since it was founded, the European Union, as you know, has been one of the main driving forces for the protection of human rights and has therefore played an active role in pursuing the aims of the Human Rights Council and ensuring that the new body represents a real improvement on the Commission on Human Rights.
The initial aims have therefore been to ensure that the Council sessions deal with urgent human-rights issues in the context of actual occurrences, to improve coordination within the EU and to step up the Union’s outreach efforts, in other words its attempts to sensitise non-EU governments to human-rights issues. In these respects real progress has been made, allowing us, on the one hand, to make a coherent and credible stand in the Human Rights Council and, on the other hand, to enhance our cooperation with partners in other parts of the world through bilateral meetings as well as in multilateral forums and through a broad-based campaign to raise awareness in many of the world’s capitals.
Among the priority tasks in the course of the first year have therefore been the safeguarding of the mandates and mechanisms of the Human Rights Council in the framework of the review process and the establishment of the new system, known as the universal periodic review, for the monitoring of the human-rights situation in all countries.
The general compromise package presented only yesterday by the President of the Human Rights Council certainly points in the right direction; while it needs improvement, from our perspective it is nevertheless a very good initial basis for negotiation. Next week’s fifth session of the Human Rights Council therefore assumes very special importance as a key to the future of that body. This is another reason why I am particularly pleased that a delegation from the European Parliament will be attending the session as part of the delegation from the European Communities.
What is the verdict on the performance of the Human Rights Council to date? It is impossible to provide a clear-cut answer, but in my view the Council should be an ongoing project, a kind of work in progress, as it were. Let me make a few brief comments. The first Council sessions were certainly rather disappointing. The old behaviour patterns resurfaced. We were already familiar with them, of course, from the Commission on Human Rights. The sessions on the Middle East in particular were truly marred by an uncooperative attitude on the part of the very states that had convened them. The result was unbalanced draft resolutions which we in the European Union were unable to support.
Let me therefore make it clear that, while confrontation on human-rights issues may well be necessary on occasion when people’s fundamental rights are at stake, it is a different matter when human rights are used as a cover for the pursuit of a primarily political conflict. Just like the Council Presidency, however, we too have observed that the very good resolution on Darfur which was recently adopted there has mitigated these unfavourable impressions. I firmly believe that it is the most important resolution the Council has adopted. It was closely coordinated with the African Group in very protracted negotiations and was ultimately adopted by consensus. That was a considerable achievement when we consider what a sensitive issue it addressed, coupled with the fact that the EU can now be easily outvoted in the Human Rights Council.
The monitoring body of five independent UN rapporteurs that was established by the resolution will present its first report to the Council in the next few weeks, most probably next week.
And let us not forget that the International Criminal Court recently indicted two Sudanese suspects. In short, there is at least movement on that front in Darfur. We very much hope that this will set an example as well as setting standards for the future work of the Human Rights Council. Lastly, the interactive dialogues with the High Commissioner and the UN’s special rapporteur have proved to be a very useful development. They have enabled us to approach the human-rights situation in individual countries – often in connection with more general human-rights issues – in a highly visible as well as far less confrontational manner. Our next step, however, is to find more ways of ensuring that these dialogues can be followed by practical progress on the ground.
However impatient we may be for rapid progress in the UN Human Rights Council, I would warn anyone against snap judgments on the Council at this stage. All we can say so far is that there have been bright and dark sides. We are convinced that the EU will continue its efforts to build on the encouraging developments that have undoubtedly taken place and to nurture, in the framework of an intensive dialogue with its UN partners, an effective UN Human Rights Council and above all one that acts in the interests of the people concerned. It remains the main international forum for the treatment of human rights, and we in the EU have a responsibility to make active use of it to reinforce our values, our ideals and our interests."@en1
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