AU: Don’t Endorse Sudan, Ethiopia for Rights Council: Competitive Elections for UN Body Would Improve Membership - DefendDefenders

AU: Don’t Endorse Sudan, Ethiopia for Rights Council: Competitive Elections for UN Body Would Improve Membership

12 July 2012.
Press Releases, Press Releases & Statements
Ethiopia, Sudan

Foreign ministers of African Union (AU) member states should reconsider a decision that would allow Sudan and Ethiopia to gain uncontested seats on the United Nations Human Rights Council, a group of African and international civil society organizations said yesterday in a letter. The AU is meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from July 9 to 16, 2012.

The UN General Assembly resolution that established the Human Rights Council states that members shall uphold the “highest standards” of human rights, but Sudan and Ethiopia fall far short of that threshold, the organizations said.

“States like Sudan and Ethiopia with records of grave human rights violations should not be rewarded with seats on the Human Rights Council,” said Hassan Shire Sheikh, director of the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project. “By endorsing their questionable candidacies, the AU would undermine the work of the council by tarnishing its membership, and turn its back on victims of abuses in these countries.”

The makeup of the Human Rights Council reflects the UN’s geographic composition, with seats allotted by regional group. Five of the 18 seats for which new members are to be elected to the 47-member council in November are allotted to African states. The African Group put forward a “clean slate” with as many candidates as the number of reserved seats: Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Sierra Leone, and Sudan.Without competitive elections, states are deprived of the chance to select the candidates best suited to serve on the council.The civil society groups urged the AU to support competition among African states for seats on the council and ensure that candidates are elected on the basis of their human rights records.“States should earn their seats on the Human Rights Council,” said Philippe Bolopion, UN director at Human Rights Watch. “A little bit of healthy competition would help ensure that only those most serious about human rights get a seat at the table.”

To read the letter to AU foreign ministers, please visit: https://defenddefenders.org/2012/07/joint-ngo-letter-on-the-endorsement-by-the-african-union-of-candidates-to-the-un-human-rights-council/

MORE NEWS:

Joint submission ahead of Ethiopia’s fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR)

CIVICUS is a global alliance of civil society organisations (CSOs)

Reflections on the 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council

The 55th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council

South Sudan: international human rights scrutiny will cover 2024 elections

By adopting a resolution entitled “Advancing human rights in South

Updates from March 2024

Hello friends, March is also fondly known as the women’s

Human Rights Defender of the month: Leon Ntakiyiruta

As a child, Leon wanted to be a magistrate – whom he saw as agents of justice. Born in 1983 in Burundi’s Southern province, he came of age at a time of great social and political upheaval in the East African country. In 1993 when Leon was barely 10, Burundi was besieged by a civil war that would last for the next 12 years until 2005, characterized by indiscriminate violence and gross human rights abuses in which over 300,000 people are estimated to have died.In 2012, still struggling to find her footing in Kampala, Aida was introduced to DefendDefenders, where she was introduced to the organisation’s resource center, and assured, it (the center) would be at her disposal whenever she needed to use it.

Joint Statement in Support of Progress toward a Crimes Against Humanity Treaty

The undersigned organizations and individuals — with representation from multiple

SHARE WITH FRIENDS: