[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

UN High Commissioner for Human Righ



Subject: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 



                   International Herald Tribune,
                   Thursday, March 6, 1997

                   Give the World a Clear Voice for
                   Human Rights


                   By Reed Brody International Herald Tribune

                   NEW YORK -   UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan faces one of
his first major tests as he moves to name a new high commissioner for human
rights, after the resignation last month of Jose Ayala Lasso, whose
lackluster performance disappointed human rights advocates.

The United Nations created the high-profile post in 1993 after a worldwide
drive by rights groups, led by Amnesty International, culminated in a UN
World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna. The high commissioner was
charged with taking ''an active role'' in ''preventing the continuation of
human rights violations throughout the world.''

Proponents hoped that the high commissioner would use his visibility and
resources to become the ''conscience of humanity,'' delivering a swift
public response to abuses and ensuring that human rights became part and
parcel of all UN activities.

Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali, over whose opposition the post was
created, undermined these hopes in April 1994 by turning to Mr. Ayala Lasso,
a cautious career diplomat who had served Ecuador's former military
government as foreign minister, the position to which he now
returns.Publicity and the marshaling of shame, activists know, are among the
few weapons in the human rights arsenal. But on issues ranging from Russian
atrocities in Chechnya to ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, the first high
commissioner relied exclusively on ''quiet diplomacy,'' squandering his
unique potential to stigmatize illegal conduct.

He visited scores of countries but almost never reported on what he saw or
discussed. At the UN Women's Conference in Beijing in 1995, Chinese
authorities hauled away Hong Kong journalists practically under the high
commissioner's nose, while undercover agents harassed exiled Tibetan women.
Mr. Ayala Lasso looked the other way. Pressed by reporters for a reaction,
he ducked the issue.

When it did not require him to openly displease powerful states, he
sometimes took important new initiatives. He boldly sent a team of monitors
to Rwanda (four of whom were recently killed), and established field offices
in Burundi, Zaire and the former Yugoslavia. A new outpost in Colombia means
that for the first time the army and the paramilitary death squads there
will be subject to on-site international monitoring.

He originally allowed governments to play off his own quiet diplomacy
against the public reporting of expert envoys named by the UN Commission on
Human Rights, but more recently he would take up the envoys' findings with
government officials, albeit privately. His recent restructuring of the UN
Center for Human Rights in Geneva could unlock frustrated talent in what has
often been a bureaucratic backwater. His web site allows immediate global
access to UN reports of abuses.

He proved unable, however, to inject human rights concerns where they really
count - on the agenda of top UN officials and the Security Council at UN
headquarters in New York, where officials set long-term strategy, respond to
crises and deploy peacekeeping operations. This is partly because of his
passive approach, partly because his office is isolated in Geneva, and
partly because of his choice of a weak New York liaison officer.

Secretary-General Annan, in proposing a new high commissioner to the General
Assembly, should also upgrade the rank of the commissioner's New York
representative.

The secretary-general has named a respected UN legal official as caretaker
while he considers his options. The post is too critical to be left vacant
for longor to be part of a business-as-usual reshuffling of UN jobs among
in-house careerists or diplomatic wannabes.

The high commissioner's job description calls for a person of ''high moral
standing and personal integrity'' with expertise in fields including human
rights. As the United Nations prepares to celebrate in 1998 the 50th
anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Mr. Annan has the
opportunity to appoint a true champion of liberty, someone who is not afraid
to openly challenge governments when they violate the rights of their citizens.




The writer, a former human rights director of the UN peacekeeping operation
in El Salvador, coordinated lobbying for human rights groups at the UN World
Conference on Human Rights. He contributed this comment to the International
Herald Tribune.


Reed Brody
60 East 9th St., Apt. 316
New York, NY 10003 USA
tel 212-982-4133