The UN Human Rights Council

The United Nations Human Rights Council is an intergovernmental organisation that works to safeguard and promote human rights around the world. On an equitable global geographical distribution, the Council is made up of 47 Member States. In this regard, Russia and Slovakia have committed to filling the space reserved for Eastern European countries.

Slovakia has demonstrated its superiority against Russia for a variety of reasons. The relentless efforts by the government of Slovakia on safeguarding the rights of a human such as offering asylum to immigrants, and enacting laws that protect human rights puts her at a better position to clinch the seat ahead of Russia. Russia’s candidacy is compromised by the past atrocities to civilians in Chechnya as well as her contributions to the violation of human rights in Ukraine and Syria. According to the UN Human Right Council, nations that participate directly or indirectly in committing human rights violation aren’t fit to sit in the council, as in the case of Russia. Despite Russia’s know-how in international diplomacy and laws, she wasn’t capable of defending her candidature and lost the bid to Slovakia.

Key Words: Russia, Slovakia, Human Rights, UN Human Right Council.

Executive Summary

Statement of the problem addressed

The United Nations Human Right Council (UNHRC) is an inter-governmental body under the United Nations (UN) that concerns with promoting and protecting all aspects of human rights globally. The work of this council is to provide a platform whereby nations can identify, highlight and develop responses to current human rights problems, and act as the backbone for human rights education, research, advocacy and public enlightening in the United Nations system. Similarly, it is the responsibility of the council to provide various nations around the globe with expertise and technical training in areas that entails administration of justice, legislative reforms, and electoral process to safeguard international human rights standards to the citizens. So far, this council consist of forty-seven Member States elected through global equitable geographical distribution and each member in the council is expected to serve for a period not exceeding three years and not eligible for re-election after serving two consecutive terms. The Eastern European States are represented by six members and, Russia and Slovakia were the two states nominated to fill a seat on the UNHRC. In spite of their nomination, Slovakia stood at a better chance of filling the position since Russia’s compromised candidature by past atrocities. This brief policy aims at analyzing the relative merits of Slovakia and Russia since the two countries have been nominated to fill a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council. The policy brief gives a specification which of the two countries I believe is the most suitable to fill the position and why.

Policy Recommendations

Candidature of every member state should be based on standards of ethics, honesty, and integrity in matters of promoting and protecting human rights.

The council should monitor the performance of all member states on matters of safeguarding human rights while they are on the board.

UNHRC should not accept the candidacy of states that are termed non-compliance to their policies or violate or damage constitutional rights of their citizens or citizens in other countries either directly or indirectly.

Introduction

The candidature of a state to the United Nations Human Right Council relies heavily on a country’s efforts to protect human rights locally and globally. Since the Council’s inception in 2006, there have been a lot of changes aiming at strengthening the council’s capacity to promote and protect human rights worldwide and be more responsive to the needs of victims of rights violations (Wouters, 2013). Human Right Watch has been very vital in assisting the council to monitor the activities of each country in respect to advance compliance with its matters suppressing violation of human rights. Every nation in the world must exhibit a certified duty in safeguarding human right since its validity, authenticity, and inclusion to the Human Right Council rest upon these merits.

In this context, Russia and Slovakia have been working hard to ensure that they safeguard human rights of their citizens. For instance, Russia has been in the forefront in ensuring that democracy prevails in its country especially in the political and economic areas. For the past two decades, Russia has been supporting democratic institutions and freedoms, and the post-communist generation in this country have expressed satisfaction to the way democracy has been growing in Russia by a double-digit margin (Jackson, 2004). Similarly, Russia has been in the forefront in safeguarding the rights of children, people with disabilities as well as women. For instance, on May 3, 2012, The President of the Russian Federation signed the Federal Law on Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to reaffirm the support to people with disabilities (Troost, 2017). Also, Russia has ensured that the Rights of Child is protected, a move recognized even by the United Nations.

On the other hand, Slovakia has done a lot in protecting and safeguarding the rights of humanity. Among the list include suppressing unlawful politically motivated killings, torture, respect to civil liberties, and giving asylum to refugees (U.S. Department of State, 2016). The outcomes of efforts put by these two countries are obligated to safeguarding the rights of humans, and this is the reason they have been considered to fill the seat at the United Nations Human Right Council.

Root cause of the problem and policy implication

Despite Russia’s roles in ensuring democracy and human rights prevails within her soil, Slovenia stands at a remarkably better position of acquiring the seat. The atrocities committed by past regimes compromises her candidature since she failed to observe the standards of promoting and protecting human rights. Russia launch of a military operation on 11 December 1994 to the Republic of Chechnya led to an immeasurable violation of human rights (Bindman, 2013). The military action exposed the Chechens to hardships and brutality forcing many of them to seek asylum in other countries. Similarly, the Russian government has been directing its Parliament to enact laws aimed at oppressing the freedoms of expression, association, and assembly. In 2012, an act to demonize foreign nongovernmental organizations was passes, and so far, it has led to the closure of more than thirty groups of this kind. The government has also been using the law to prosecute activist termed as “foreign agents” as in the case of Valentina Cherevatenko (Human Rights Watch, 2017).

In 2015, the Russian Parliament passed a law to allowing conduction of investigation on European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgments contradicts the Russian Constitution (Human Rights Watch, 2017). Russia’s involvement in Ukraine and Syria also compromises her candidature to the Human Right Council. The support of rebels in eastern Ukraine by the government with both political and material aids created a human right crisis in Crimea. Also, the launch of unlawful aerial attacks by Russia in Syria led to a massive violation of human rights to the extent of requiring the intervention of the UN Human Rights Council (Amnesty International, 2017). When selecting a state member from the Eastern European, the member states precisely contemplate whether the abuses in Syria by Russians comply with the standards and themes of the world’s inter-governmental human rights body.

Since Putin’s arrival to the administration in 2012, attacks on freedom of expression and association have been among the genuine human rights hustle in Russia. In July 2017, he signed the “Yarovaya Law,” an amendment of counterterrorism and counter-extremism, but compromises the freedoms of access to information and worship (Amnesty International, 2017).

Slovakia, on the other hand, suffers some setbacks despite showing a lot of commitments in safeguarding human rights. The reports on trial delays and cursory procedures when reviewing asylum application has been in the public domain. The law in Slovakia permits asylum. However, there have been concerns from the Amnesty International and UNHCR concerning the slowness of the procedures when processing applications, forcing asylum seekers in some instances to wait for more than six months (U.S. Department of State, 2016). Also, Slovakia was at one time defying the rights of inmates. There was congestion of prisoners in its prisons especially Holcsik Prison and Bratislava Prison where the inmates behind bars exceeded these prisons’ holding capacity (Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2011).

Although the government respects the human rights of its citizens, cases of violence against women have been present. There have been cases of gender discrimination based on gender identity, gender expression and individual’s social status. Women and girls are still discriminated and trafficked. Similarly, the government has been reported to indirectly inhibit the rights of the media and long-standing human violation to residents without following legal status. In the same context, discrimination and social exclusion of Romani was a violation of human right since the majority were forced to live under unfavorable conditions of insecurity, inadequate housing, poor sanitation, and contaminated water (Amnesty International, 2017). The reproductive rights of women were also violated through forced sterilization and other assaults, something that continues even today. However, Slovakia has rectified almost all these cases identified to be violating human rights.

In this context, rejecting Russia’s bid for a position in the Human Rights Council can be an excellent example to other member states still violating human rights. It will also send a strong message to Putin and his Russian administration on how the world feels due to his hatred to the citizens of Syria.

Critique of the policy options

It is without a doubt that the Human Rights situation in Slovakia and Russia gives reasons to reject their nomination in the HRC position. Slovakia has been at the cutting edge of harsh reactions to Europe’s refugee and asylum-seekers, discrimination, the “erased,” Rights of lesbian, gay, transgender, and intersex, as well as the violation of legal and constitutional developments (Amnesty International, 2017). However, Slovakia managed to win the seat since it had enacted laws to counter many of these problems with a promising commitment to streamline the remaining sections (National Strategy for Human Rights Protection and Promotion in Slovakia, n.d).

Russia losing this bid didn’t come as a surprise. Incompetency of Russia lies in the fact that they have been supporting the Syrian government in launching air strikes against civilians in a military intercession (Amnesty International, 2017). Her actions in Syria left many homeless, kids disabled, many neglected with little access to medication, education and other essential amenities. Similarly, Russia providing political and material support to rebels in Eastern Ukraine demonstrates inclusion of Russia into the council will bring a ”bad name” to the committee although they have shown some responsibilities through controlling misuse by revolutionaries.

Russia has been trying to position itself as a worldwide pioneer in defending the sovereignty of the nation and traditional values, resisting the erosion and dominance of the ”Western overabundance” in the advancement of rights and privileges of people. Similarly, some countries within Eastern Europe have taken the same course of restricting the freedom and running of nongovernmental organizations operating within their soils. This is through the enactment of strict standards which they are supposed to comply with. Although nongovernmental groups have been trying to push for the amendment of the laws affecting their operations, there is some hope that they will be allowed to continue with their activities but in the absence of support from the western countries.

Today, Russia is more oppressive than it was two decades ago. The enactment of laws that limit the freedom of speech and expression, assembly, religion, media contradicts her commitment in protecting human rights as stipulated by the Human Right Council (Human Rights Watch, 2017). Besides, interdiction of nongovernmental organizations alluded as ”foreign agents” add salts to the wound already in existence.

Conclusion

To conclude, Slovakia’s government managed to secure the candidature through giving the council of their preparedness and efforts to protect and promote human rights. A report showing their fastness to adopt a strategic human rights program was enough to convince the council to be given the candidacy. On the other hand, Russia’s bid rejection was a clear example of what nations that oppress the rights of their citizens and citizens of other countries should expect especially in the 21st Century, The denial also tends to insulate those nations that confer human rights outrages have no ethical rights to be in the UN Human Rights Council. Since Russia cares only about the security issues, they deserved the defeat so that they can reflect on their actions and laws that restrict human rights. On the other hand, there is no doubt that Slovakia will polish the remaining areas concerning safeguarding the rights of her citizens. Since they have shown the commitment before, there is no doubt that they will expand that involvement throughout the world.

References

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https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/253111.pdf.

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https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/europe-and-central-asia/russian-federation/report-russian-federation/.

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https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/europe-and-central-asia/slovakia/report-slovakia/.

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https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/russia.

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https://www.coe.int/t/commissioner/source/NAP/Slovakia-National-Action-Plan-on-Human-Rights.pdf

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