Bangladesh has been elected as a member of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for a three-year term from 2019 to 2021. This, of course, can be seen as an achievement, especially for the current government as has been said by one of the ministers: “The election result signified the international community’s trust and confidence in Bangladesh.”
However, the question comes into mind -- does becoming a member of UN Human Rights Council have any relation with, or could it have any impact on the human rights situation of Bangladesh? The answer would surely be a big “no.”
People who are familiar with the structure of the UN, and how voting for the membership of any UN body happens, would find it difficult to be convinced that winning of the UNHRC membership by any country has any link with the human rights record of that country.
And in this case, Bangladesh is no different. Although the voting was done by secret ballot, let’s look at the fact -- there were five vacant seats from the Asia-Pacific Group, and exactly five countries competed for these five positions.
Along with Bangladesh, the other countries elected from the Asia-Pacific Group are India, Bahrain, Fiji, and the Philippines. As a crude example of why this election has nothing to do with the human rights situation of the elected country, let’s look carefully to the Philippines, which has been elected for a second term, and yet the country’s human rights situation is believed to be one of the worst in the world.
A recently released report by international NGO Global Witness documented 50 killings of environmental human rights defenders across Asia in 2017. Out of those 50 killings, 48 happened in the Philippines. Since July 2016, more than 12,000 suspected drug dealers and users have been gunned down in the Philippines. Reporters Without Borders has cut Philippines’ ranking on its 2018 World Press Freedom Index from 133 in 2017 to 127.
As a condition of membership, Human Rights Council members are expected to cooperate with the council and its rights experts. Instead, the Philippines has carried out vicious campaigns against UN officials, including against the special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings and the high commissioner for human rights. The Filipino president even called him a “son of a bitch.”
Another obligation for countries seeking for membership is to make voluntary pledges for the promotion and protection of human rights in their respective countries. And to comply with that, Bangladesh did make 30 pledges. Looking at some of these pledges, everyone will understand what a meaningless and merely paper-based exercise this is.
The pledges include -- among other things -- to continue to enact and/or update, to the extent necessary, national legislation to implement the international human rights instruments to which it is a party (please take note of recent enactment of the Digital Security Act while reading this); to sustain the trend of further strengthening and empowering the statutory and watchdog bodies, such as the National Human Rights Commission, the National Election Commission, the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Public Service Commission, and the Information Commission (take note of what is happening with Election Commissioner Mahbub Talukdar); to continue to preserve freedom of the press and promote the constructive role of civil society and print, electronic, and social media in the promotion of human rights at all levels; to continue to preserve the independence of the judiciary etc.
Let’s also have a look at the current membership of the UNHRC. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, China, UAE, the US (dropped out on June 19 blaming the institution as a “protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias” and having “disproportionate focus and unending hostility towards Israel”) are the few countries among its current 47 members. Let’s get it clear and straight -- member states do not want to see strong human rights oversight from the UN, and being an organization comprised of these states, it will never be able to overcome this limitation.
Let’s not have any illusions, and let us be clear that the UN is a political body, subject to political alliances, and interests of the state. And since human rights strongly overlap with politics, the UN Human Rights Council remains more political in its composition as well as operation. Among the 47 members, Asia and the Pacific hold 13 seats, which have rotated largely among the same group of relatively more influential Asian states like China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia, which have been members of the Human Rights Council in nine out of the first 10 years of the council.
So let’s not get the idea that Bangladesh’s membership to the UNHRC has anything to do with the current human rights situation of the country. Human rights violators might try to find some shadow under this cover, but let our eyes not be fooled by this mirage.
Sayeed Ahmad is a human rights defender from Bangladesh.
