UN gives maligned rights body dignified burial

GENEVA, Mar 27: Much maligned in later life, the 60-year-old UN Human Rights Commission received a dignified funeral today to make way for a protector of the persecuted that it is hoped will be more dynamic.

The Commission, which gave birth to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948, will be replaced in June by the United Nations Human Rights Council, which advocates say should have more authority to speak out on rights abuses.

In a brief final session, which was expected to wrap up either later today or tomorrow, its 53 member states will approve its dissolution after the UN General Assembly voted for the setting up of the new council earlier this month.

For critics, including UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Human Rights High Commissioner Louise Arbour, the commission was hobbled because states whose rights records were questionable got themselves elected to it to shield themselves.

But in bidding farewell, Arbour had some warm words for a body that emerged after the destruction and mass killings of World War Two as part of international efforts to ensure such carnage was never repeated.

''It would ... be a distortion of fact, and a gross disservice to this institution, if we failed on this occasion to celebrate the achievements of the commission,'' she said in her address to its valedictory meeting.

Amongst its successes, Arbour listed the universal declaration and two later covenants -- on civil and political rights and on economic, social and cultural rights -- against which all states are judged.

''These were, and are, ground-breaking human rights instruments, maybe the most famous contribution ever made by the UN to the wellbeing of the whole of mankind,'' said the former Canadian Supreme Court judge and UN war crimes prosecutor.

POISONOUS DEBATE

The commission had also set international standards on the rights of women and of children, as well as of human rights defenders, and shaped covenants outlawing genocide, racial discrimination and torture. Although it became the subject of ''intense, even poisonous'' debate, the commission had also done much to help victims of abuse in individual countries, Arbour said.

She highlighted its stance on the apartheid regime in South Africa, Chile under military rule, East Timor, Kosovo, Rwanda and territory Israel occupies where Palestinians want a state.

She also pointed to the fact that ordinary people were able to bring individual cases before the commission.

''These, then, are the achievements that we should today take note of and, tomorrow, build on,'' Arbour said.

But in recent years, human rights activists say the commission lost credibility in large part because of the membership of such countries as Sudan, Cuba and Zimbabwe.

China and Russia regularly avoided investigation of their treatment of political and religious minorities, while the commission never launched a probe into the US prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which has been widely condemned by rights groups.

States will need to win the backing of 50 per cent of the general assembly to gain a seat on the council, which will hold its first session on June 19.

But the council's birth has also been marred by controversy.

The United States opposed it because it wanted tougher entry qualifications, although it has said it will work with it.

Washington also objected to the fact that countries will only be able to serve for two consecutive terms.

Reuters