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Viewing cable 07GENEVA2626, Human Rights Council Session Highlights Troubling

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
07GENEVA2626 2007-12-17 16:51 2011-08-25 00:00 UNCLASSIFIED US Mission Geneva
VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHGV #2626/01 3511651
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 171651Z DEC 07
FM USMISSION GENEVA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5803
INFO RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 2606
RUEHZJ/HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL COLLECTIVE
UNCLAS GENEVA 002626 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR IO-RHS, DRL-MLGA, L-HRR 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM UNHRC
SUBJECT: Human Rights Council Session Highlights Troubling 
Negotiating Dynamic 
 
Ref A:  Geneva 2373; Ref B:  Geneva 2355 
 
1.  Summary:  The Human Rights Council's resumed Sixth Session of 
December 10-14 highlighted the pernicious dynamic of previous 
sessions in which important resolutions were held hostage to 
negotiations between the European Union and Organization of the 
Islamic Conference (OIC).  That dynamic was evident in negotiations 
on country resolutions, resulting in the elimination of the Group of 
Experts on Sudan and a weak resolution extending the mandate of the 
Special Rapporteur on Sudan, as well as a weakened text on Burma. 
The dynamic also shaped work on the mandate of the Special 
Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, on which the EU 
negotiated directly with the OIC, watered down important elements of 
the text to try to garner OIC support, and froze out the U.S. and 
other would-be cosponsors who wanted to help shape the text, 
resulting in adoption of a resolution with language that OIC 
countries can use to justify criminalization of freedom of 
expression.  This underlying political dynamic must be broken if the 
year-and-a-half old Council, which is still taking shape, is to 
address human rights problems in a serious and substantive way.  End 
Summary. 
 
2.  The resumed Sixth Session of the Human Rights Council 
demonstrated the drift evident in the treatment of serious human 
rights situations in a Council dominated by the Organization of the 
Islamic Conference (OIC) with the connivance of the African Group. 
(Ref A reported on developments in the Sixth Session's initial three 
weeks, from September 10-28.)  This dynamic has been exacerbated by 
the premium the EU places on its own internal coordination, 
frequently at the expense of contributions from non-EU allies, and 
achievement of consensus overall.  This unfortunate confluence of 
events has made it difficult for the U.S. and other like-minded 
countries to contribute significantly to the process, as our 
potential contributions to substantive texts have been discounted by 
an EU intent on compromising with Council blocs whose interests are 
often inimical to the promotion and protection of human rights. 
 
Sudan 
 
3. In the current resumed session, the Council's negotiations on the 
two Sudan texts were one casualty of this underlying dynamic.  At 
the first Sudan informal, the EU presented two draft resolutions, 
one extending the mandate of the Special Rapporteur and the second 
following up on the Report of the Group of Experts and extending the 
Group's mandate.  Before holding this informal, the EU had 
negotiated with the African Group in an effort to produce a 
consensus text that they could table covering both issues.  When 
this effort failed, the EU decided to hold open informals in an 
effort to be more transparent.  GRULAC, non-EU Western Group 
members, and even some African countries like Uganda expressed 
appreciation for the EU's transparent approach.  Many of these 
countries, including the United States, provided substantial 
comments on these texts in the open informals. By the next day, 
however, the EU and the African Group had again started negotiating 
privately and, the afternoon before the vote, presented two texts 
addressing the Group of Experts and the Special Rapporteur, 
neither of which included any of the changes suggested by the U.S. 
or others.   The two groups even refused to make technical fixes to 
a paragraph in one of the Sudan resolutions whose counterpart in the 
EU's Liberia resolution had already been fixed in a manner 
acceptable to all.  EU and African Group representatives told the 
U.S. delegation that they did not see the change at issue as 
problematic, but nonetheless could not correct the language because 
"the Portuguese and Egyptian Ambassadors had already shaken hands on 
the agreed texts." 
 
4. The final result failed to extend the mandate of the Group of 
Experts and failed to hold Sudan accountable for its weak 
implementation of that Group's recommendations, not to mention its 
poor cooperation with the Group and the Special Rapporteur and 
terrible recent human rights record overall.  As a result of the 
opaque process and weak texts, the U.S., Canada, and Norway chose 
not to sponsor either of the Sudan resolutions.  Australia and New 
Zealand, while disappointed with the results, decided to co-sponsor 
the resolution renewing the Special Rapporteur's mandate but not the 
resolution following up on the work of the Group of Experts. 
 
Burma 
 
5. The EU also proved unforthcoming with the U.S. and other 
like-minded countries on its follow-up to the relatively tough 
resolution it had produced at its October 2 Special Session on Burma 
(Ref B).  After producing a good first draft calling on the Burmese 
government specifically to implement all the resolutions laid out in 
Special Rapporteur Paulo Pinheiro's report to the Council, the EU 
backed off in the face of resistance from Russia, China, India and 
others.  Without informing like-minded countries, it negotiated away 
the specific references to Pinheiro's recommendations, and accepted 
language that welcomed Burma's release of detainees (although it 
 
ultimately moderated the latter reference). 
 
6. This watered-down version was the only revised version the EU 
showed to co-sponsors, doing so on the session's last day, just 
hours before the resolution would be considered.  The process 
elicited complaints from us, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and 
Switzerland about the lack of EU transparency.  Although the 
resolution overall is still useful and was passed by consensus, EU 
coordination with like-minded delegations could have produced a 
stronger text. 
 
Freedom of Religion or Belief 
 
7. Negotiations on the renewal of the mandate for the Special 
Rapporteur for Freedom of Religion or Belief were equally 
frustrating.  In addition to renewing the mandate, the text also 
contains a lengthy preambular section on religious freedoms and 
religious intolerance.  Although the OIC avoided explicit 
"defamation of religions" language, the bloc instead pressed for 
language criminalizing freedom of expression by individuals, the 
media and political parties, in effect "defamation" in disguise. 
 
8. The EU refused to entertain repeated U.S. requests to eliminate 
problematic language criminalizing freedom of expression, arguing 
that its hands were tied because the language came verbatim from the 
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  As a result, 
the final text contains a sentence obliging states "To ensure that 
any advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to 
discrimination, hostility or violence is prohibited by law."  Yet 
had non-EU countries been allowed to see the text before this 
language was presented as a fait accompli, there would have been 
more room to address the problem.  By giving away so much so soon to 
the OIC, the Portuguese delegation managing the negotiations limited 
its room to maneuver, only emboldening the OIC, which on the 
penultimate day of the session tabled amendments expressing alarm at 
the negative stereotyping of religions and their adherents and 
prophets, adding a reference to "protecting religions" under 
international and national law, and deleting the reference to the 
right to change one's religion.  The tabling of amendments triggered 
intense lobbying by OIC and EU countries, as well as by the U.S. 
(with the welcome support of U.S. Commission on International 
Religious Freedom Commissioner Leonard Leo).  In the end, it was 
apparent the OIC did not have the votes to pass the most problematic 
of its amendments, and they were withdrawn at the last moment. 
 
9. During the explanations of vote, Pakistan for the OIC complained 
that because its concerns had not been met in negotiations, its 
members would abstain en bloc.  OIC countries also disassociated 
themselves from the reference to the right to change one's religion 
and said the OIC does not consider it legally binding. The 
resolution passed by a vote of 29-0-18, representing the first time 
that this mandate was adopted without consensus.  Rumors are rife 
that the OIC hopes to oust Asma Jahangir from her position as 
Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief at the March 
session of the Council and replace her with Doudou Diene, currently 
the Senegalese Special Rapporteur on Racism, who is known to 
sympathize with OIC views on what constitutes religious intolerance. 
 Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights staffers inform 
us, however, that Diene has no interest in taking up that mandate. 
 
 
Successor to Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP) 
 
10.  The U.S. delegation participated actively in negotiations for 
the successor body to the WGIP.  Although we were isolated in our 
view that the WGIP needed no Geneva-based successor at all, we did 
manage, in conjunction with the UK, Canada, Australia and New 
Zealand, to limit the mandate of the new expert mechanism.  The body 
will undertake research and studies, but the development and 
implementation of norms are outside its mandate, and the new 
mechanism must work on instruction from the Council.  Interestingly, 
Bolivia, which originally introduced the text and conducted the 
marathon parallel informals during the week of the Council meeting, 
in the end introduced the text but then disassociated from consensus 
on the grounds that the text did not go far enough towards meeting 
the concerns of the indigenous caucus. 
 
Comment 
 
11.  The prevailing political and negotiating dynamics at the Human 
Rights Council must be broken if that body, which is still taking 
shape, is to address human rights problems in a serious and 
substantive way.  Instead of seeking the support of the U.S. and 
other sympathetic delegations in its efforts to hold violators to 
their international human rights obligations, the instinct of the EU 
appears to be to bend over backwards to accommodate the concerns of 
the violators and their supporters.  The result is not pretty. 
South Africa, which serves as the driving force behind the Durban 
process and has a tunnel-vision interest on issues of racial 
 
equality, appears to have made common cause with the OIC and its 
parallel tunnel-vision interest in ensuring the alleged rights of 
the collective in Muslim societies.  This vision is fundamentally 
incompatible with the interests of Western democracies.  Until the 
EU can be made to see that its paramount goal of ensuring its 
internal unity, with its predictable lowest-common-denominator 
results, will rarely hold anyone accountable for anything, our 
efforts to see the HRC evolve into an effective and respectable 
human rights mechanism are likely to go unrewarded.  The U.S. made a 
greater effort in this short session to influence events, but this 
level and manner of engagement simply were not enough to have a 
significant impact.