Battle Lines on the Human Rights Front

Chile's representative in Geneva, Juan Enrique Vega, abstained on the resolution — rather than vote no as instructed by his government — and was promptly recalled to Santiago. Vega's stand came just weeks before the U.S. signed a free-trade agreement with Singapore, a supporter of the war in Iraq. Chile had been expected to sign a trade agreement first, but the U.S. has let it be known that it is not pleased with Santiago's failure to fall into line on Iraq in the U.N. Security Council.

While such politicking — inside and outside the commission — is nothing new, Sergio Vieira De Mello, the U.N. High Commission for Human Rights, chastised the panel at the close its session for, at times, "losing sight of the noble goal of protecting human rights in the very body whose duty it is to promote them." Asserting that the commission's problems are not structural but a matter of will, the Brazilian diplomat told the delegates: "When a charge of partiality — of failure to recognize the indivisibility of human rights — destroys a resolution on an important question, this is not to be celebrated. It is a disaster. It is a failure to take up the burden. At worst, it may even be a betrayal of the hopes of people who desperately need you."

There are indeed strange bedfellows in the commission's chambers, where political point-scoring is nonetheless rife, but divergent interests do coincide. At the just-concluded session, Muslim-bloc nations — via procedural filibustering and helpful rulings by commission chairwoman Najat Al-Hajjaji of Libya — took the lead in running out the clock on a Brazilian resolution reaffirming the principle of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Abstentions by Ireland and four Latin American countries (attributed to lobbying by the Holy See) and by the U.S. (pressured by its Christian right) helped Islamic nations to defer a vote for a year.

Between the Muslim and Christian groups, says an NGO representative, "the goal was definitely shared. Both were unhappy with the resolution. They were saying privately, weeks in advance, that this would be a big showdown for them, that they would not tolerate it." The dispute on cultural and religious values — in which a one-page resolution reaffirming that people are entitled to rights and dignity regardless of their sexual orientation — was tactically buried under an avalanche of amendments from several countries, points up the difficulties the rights commission faces.

The delay, says one disappointed observer, "does give civil society another year to focus on the spurious arguments and to defeat them." While it is too early to speculate about what may transpire in early 2004, the battle lines clearly will be drawn again.