Candidates for the United Nations Human
Rights
Council should meet the standards for council membership even when
running
unopposed, a global coalition of human rights organizations said today. 
The General Assembly resolution that established the council states that
members
shall uphold the "highest standards" of human rights, but at least five
of the
candidates in this year's election fall short of that threshold, the
coalition
said.

(New
York, May 10, 2010) – Candidates for the United Nations Human
Rights
Council should meet the standards for council membership even when
running
unopposed, a global coalition of human rights organizations said today. 
The General Assembly resolution that established the council states that
members
shall uphold the "highest standards" of human rights, but at least five
of the
candidates in this year's election fall short of that threshold, the
coalition
said.

"States should press candidates to take concrete steps to
meet
membership standards for the council, and make it clear that their votes
depend
on it," said Hassan Shire Sheikh, director of the East and Horn of
Africa Human
Rights Defenders Network.  "The General Assembly set a high threshold
for
membership in the council, and has a duty to enforce it."

On
May
13, 2010, member nations of the UN General Assembly in New York will
elect 14
new members to the 47-member Human Rights Council, the UN's leading
human rights
body, which meets in Geneva. The make-up of the council reflects the
UN's
geographic composition, and seats are allotted by regional
group.

For the first time, each UN geographical region has
put
forward "clean slates" with only as many candidates as
vacancies. Without
competitive elections, states are deprived of the chance to select the
candidates best suited to serve on the council.  However, the balloting
process for the council requires states to cast their votes by writing
in the
names of the candidates they select. A member can only be elected by an
affirmative vote of more than half of the overall UN membership.

In
letters to UN
member states, the NGO Coalition for an Effective Human Rights Council
expressed
concern that the human rights records of Angola, Libya, Malaysia,
Thailand, and
Uganda currently fall short of the standards set for council membership,
including the obligation that they uphold the "highest standards" of
human
rights and that they "fully cooperate" with the council.  The coalition
urged UN member states to push those countries to take concrete steps to
address
human rights concerns, and to withhold their votes from countries that
do not
take such action. In particular, the coalition stressed that states
seeking
election should make an explicit commitment to cooperate fully with
human rights
experts appointed by the council and to provide immediate access to UN
experts
seeking to visit.

"When a state seeks a seat on the
council, the
least it should do is open its doors to the council's own experts," said
Peggy
Hicks, Global Advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "But many of the
candidates running this year have stalled on requests by council experts
to
visit. This is a problem that can and should be addressed before
Thursday's
election."

The General Assembly resolution that created the Human
Rights
Council in 2006 envisioned an election process in which states would
compete for
membership based on the contribution they would make to promoting human
rights,
and states would issue pledges and commitments that UN members should
consider
in casting their votes. That process has deteriorated as fewer states
have
competed each year.

Five countries were running for seats
from the
UN's Asia region, but Iran withdrew from the race on April 23 in the
face of
mounting global opposition based on its record of severe human rights
abuses,
rather than face likely defeat in the General Assembly. Successful
campaigns
have led to the defeat of states with poor human rights records,
including Belarus in 2007, Sri Lanka in
2008, and Azerbaijan in 2009,
when those states faced competitive races in their
regions.

"Iran's withdrawal showed that
international
pressure can improve the membership of the council, and demonstrated the
importance of competitive elections for seats," said
Bahey el-din Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights
Studies
(CIHRS).

Four remaining Asia region states ­­- Malaysia,
Maldives, Qatar, and Thailand – now seek the four seats from that
region.

"Malaysia should immediately end the use of all
preventive
detention laws, and repeal laws that restrict freedom of expression and
academic
freedom," said Yap Swee Seng, executive director of Asian Forum for
Human Rights
and Development (FORUM-ASIA), citing two of the specific concerns
expressed by
the coalition in its letter regarding Malaysia. "Thailand should fully
investigate the past deaths of 20 human rights defenders, conduct
effective
investigations into major human rights abuses in the deep south, lift
press
censorship, and repeal laws limiting the right to free
expression."

Angola, Libya, Mauritania, and Uganda have
been
endorsed by the Africa regional group as an official "clean slate" for
the four
open seats for that region.

"Angola should immediately cease
forced
evictions without adequate compensation, release human rights defenders
jailed
in the Cabinda region, cease mass deportations of foreign migrants, and
move to
amend its press law to decriminalize defamation," said Shire, whose
organization
is based in Kampala. "Uganda should make torture a domestic criminal
offense,
allow the Uganda Human Rights Commission and independent NGOs access to
all
detainees, and actively cooperate with the International Criminal Court
and
other international investigations of war crimes, genocide, and crimes
against
humanity."

The NGO coalition also called on Uganda to
withdraw
bills pending in its parliament that would unduly restrict print media
and
nongovernmental organizations, permit forced HIV testing, and
criminalize
practices related to homosexuality.

Speaking for the coalition, Hassan of the Cairo Institute
called on Libya to "reveal the fate of hundreds who were
‘disappeared'
and prosecute those responsible, release hundreds of Abu Salim prisoners
who
completed their sentences or were acquitted, repeal laws that
criminalize
freedom of expression and association, and cease mistreatment of
migrants."

Ecuador and Guatemala are the only states
running for
the two Latin American seats this year.  In the Western European and
Others group, only Spain and Switzerland are running for the region's
two open
seats, and in the Eastern European group, only Moldova and Poland now
seek the
two available seats, Croatia having withdrawn in February.

"The
Western
European and Others group had competitive races every year until 2009,
and the
Eastern Europeans had spirited contests every year until this year,"
said Dokhi
Fassihian, executive director of the Democracy Coalition Project. 
"States
in every region that care about human rights should be willing to stand
for
election and compete on their records."

The coalition noted that
other
candidate countries should also be pressed to improve their human rights
records, and to fully cooperate with the council. The coalition chose to
focus
on five of the candidates based on the availability of direct research
concerning the human rights situation in those countries and the extent
of the
human rights concerns
identified.

To download the complete statement in pdf, please click here.