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The World's Human & Civil Rights Community

Hears from Some 40 Speakers, as General Debate on Human Rights Issues Begins With multiple interrelated crises affecting developing countries and vulnerable populations disproportionately — causing further erosions in the progressive realization of human rights — it was time to recalibrate the human rights agenda to better include economic, social and cultural rights, along with the right to development, the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) was told today. 

As the Committee launched its annual general debate on the promotion and protection of human rights after procedural disagreements on the speaking order of major groups derailed yesterday’s planned start, State delegations reaffirmed that all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated. Yet, many of them expressed strong concerns that economic, social and cultural rights continued to be relegated to second-tier status compared to civil and political rights. Speaking on behalf of the Caribbean Community, Suriname’s representative further underscored the importance of the right to development and emphasized international cooperation in providing an enabling environment in that regard. As the world community prepared for next year’s United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development ( Rio+20), he said it must renew commitments to a human-centred approach to development. Underlining the impact of the financial crisis on human rights, Uruguay’s delegate, speaking on behalf of the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), emphasized that no situation resulting from the crisis could justify the violation of human rights, and appealed to all States to strengthen economic, social and cultural rights in their responses to the economic turmoil. 

Many of the nearly 40 speakers taking the floor today stressed that the ongoing events in North Africa and the Middle East testified to the crucial significance of universal human rights, which applied to all people, at all times, everywhere. But a number of them said that, while changes in those regions had opened up possibilities for a new political order based more firmly on democracy, respect for human rights and rule of law, those transitions were not assured. Suggesting that the uprisings had shown that Governments could not stand forever in the way of people’s right to development in all its dimensions, Liechtenstein’s representative stressed that, where change had come, the international community and the United Nations were responsible to help ensure it was irreversible.

“The performance of the United Nations has improved in this regard, but will crucially depend on the international community’s sustained commitment to assist interested States in providing their people with a life in dignity and security,” he said, adding they must also hold those responsible for crimes against international human rights law and international humanitarian law accountable. Echoing others, the representative of the European Union expressed specific concerns about the human rights situation in Libya, where cases of arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings were being reported.

“The new authorities should ensure that justice prevails over revenge, while, of course, the atrocities committed during the Qadhafi regime need to be properly addressed, including through full cooperation with the International Criminal Court,” he said. Agreeing that his country’s recent bitter experience showed what could happen when human rights were consistently violated, Libya’s delegate said numerous allegations of violations in the last days of the uprising were still under investigation and if proven guilty, those who committed them would face justice.

However, it was to be expected, he suggested, that some incidents would have taken place, knowing how hated Qadhafi was and how angry the population was after his abuses. Noting that new technologies, such as the Internet and mobile phone networks, had become important tools in exercising the rights of freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, the representative of the United States said that some countries continued to deny their citizens those rights both on the street and online. In that respect, he enumerated allegations of such violations in China, whose Government harassed and detained citizens who expressed dissenting viewpoints, blocked social networking sites and Internet searches, and imposed restrictions on civil society organizations, workers and unregistered religious groups.

Categorically rejecting those “groundless allegations”, China’s representative urged the United States, as well as the European Union, to put their own houses in order before making accusations against his country. For its part, China had found a path for human rights development with Chinese characteristics that was suited to its national conditions.

He joined a number of other delegations in arguing that international human rights endeavours continued to be plagued by double standards and politicization. “A small number of countries are still using country-specific resolutions as instruments to put pressure on developing countries,” he said, stressing that interference in the internal affairs of other countries under the pretence of protecting civilians and defending human rights violated the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter. Calling attention to a “unique situation” facing his country that was of immediate relevance to all Member States, Sri Lanka’s Minister of Plantation Industries and Special Envoy for Human Rights expressed concern that the outcome of a private consultation on Sri Lanka initiated by the Secretary-General was communicated without notice to the President of the Human Rights Council last month. Not only had his delegation not been advised of that communication, but no intergovernmental body requested or sanctioned the formation, functioning or reportage of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka. Although saner counsel prevailed and the report was not entertained before the Council, his Government considered the Panel’s report to be “irretrievably flawed”, he said. Sri Lanka’s President had appointed an independent “Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission” to recommend steps towards reconciliation, restitution for victims and non-repetition of internal armed conflict.

Moreover, the Government would be submitting itself to the Council’s Universal Periodic Review in October 2012 and any questions could be discussed at that time. Also participating in today’s debate were the Director of the Cabinet, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Senegal, and the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs of Australia. The Committee also heard from representatives of Chile (on behalf of the Rio Group), Malaysia (on behalf of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN)), Venezuela, Norway, Thailand, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Russian Federation, Japan, Tunisia, Indonesia, Syria, Peru, Sudan, Belarus, Republic of Korea, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Argentina, New Zealand, Cyprus, Greece, Kazakhstan, Singapore, India, Serbia, Bangladesh and Malaysia. A representative of the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine also commented. Representatives of Syria, Bahrain, Cuba, Fiji, Sri Lanka, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Turkey and Japan spoke in exercise of the right of reply. The Committee will reconvene at 10 a.m. Thursday, 27 October,