The unsung: UN human rights experts

Two Brookings Institution scholars, Ted Piccone and Emily Alinikoff,  are defending the work of the UN Human Rights Council. Often derided for its suspect membership and obsession with Israel, the Council, they point out, also supervises the work of a roving group of human rights experts.  Piccone and Alinikoff marshal some evidence showing that these ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

Two Brookings Institution scholars, Ted Piccone and Emily Alinikoff,  are defending the work of the UN Human Rights Council. Often derided for its suspect membership and obsession with Israel, the Council, they point out, also supervises the work of a roving group of human rights experts.  Piccone and Alinikoff marshal some evidence showing that these experts contribute appreciably to changing behavior. They argue that the media's intense focus on the Council proceedings in Geneva, and the inevitable fights there, misses an important part of the UN human rights machinery:

Two Brookings Institution scholars, Ted Piccone and Emily Alinikoff,  are defending the work of the UN Human Rights Council. Often derided for its suspect membership and obsession with Israel, the Council, they point out, also supervises the work of a roving group of human rights experts.  Piccone and Alinikoff marshal some evidence showing that these experts contribute appreciably to changing behavior. They argue that the media’s intense focus on the Council proceedings in Geneva, and the inevitable fights there, misses an important part of the UN human rights machinery:

As Republicans prepare to run the House of Representatives, expect to see criticism of the council’s work on human rights move up a notch or two. Opponents of the Obama administration’s engagement policy say it’s time to call it quits and withdraw from the council after just two years of U.S. membership. They bristle to see the United States face peer examination of its human rights record by such states as Cuba and Iran, for example, even as they and other states like China and Russia submit to unprecedented exposure themselves. This myopic focus misses the mark. As governments take stock of the council’s first five years, it is crucial to consider how this body actually promotes and protects human rights for the victims it is designed to defend, instead of focusing solely on the political machinations in Geneva.

One of the council’s primary yet undervalued instruments of human rights promotion is its independent experts who investigate human rights situations on the ground and report back to the U.N. Currently, more than forty of these independent experts are working on human rights themes like the prevention of torture, violence against women, freedom of religion, and freedom of expression. An additional eight individuals examine violations in specific countries like North Korea, Sudan, Burma, and Cambodia.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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