According to the official website of the United Nations, on September 12, the new regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council was announced in Geneva, Switzerland, where its headquarters is located. The UN Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nada Al-Nashif, gave a briefing at the regular session, detailing a number of pressing human rights concerns around the world, saying urgent action was needed on them.
Last Thursday (8th), with the unanimous approval of the 102nd plenary session of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres officially appointed Volker Turck from Austria as the new UN Secretary-General. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
It is expected that, in addition to the Russian-Ukrainian war of international concern, one of the key issues on the agenda of this session is the resignation of Michelle Bachele, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on August 31. How should we advance the follow-up work on the report on human rights violations in Xinjiang released by China (the CCP) on the last day before?
“The extent to which arbitrary and discriminatory detention of Uighur members and other predominantly Muslim groups, by law and policy, limits and deprives individuals and groups more generally,” Bachelet said in the 48-page report. may constitute international crimes, especially crimes against humanity.”
The report recommends action by countries, businesses and the international community around the world to end these abuses and advance justice and accountability. Beijing argues that it is a “vocational training center” designed to help locals stay away from extreme Islamism and terrorism.
At present, Western countries and a number of NGOs are actively calling for follow-up work on the Xinjiang report. Last Wednesday (7th), more than 40 UN independent experts said that the international community should not turn a blind eye or turn a deaf ear to such serious human rights violations, and at the same time called on the UN Human Rights Council to organize a special session against Beijing.
The United Nations Human Rights Council is the main body of the United Nations for the promotion and protection of human rights. It meets at least three times a year at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Human Rights Council resolutions are not binding, but carry moral weight, as countries do not like to be criticized.
The report said that the Human Rights Council is the highest body of the United Nations to safeguard human rights and is responsible for investigating human rights violations in member states. But while it seems feasible to investigate other countries, investigating the human rights situation in China and Russia is fraught with difficulties.
Experts point to increasing pressure from NGOs on the Human Rights Council, highlighting serious human rights violations by Beijing in the Xinjiang region and the Kremlin’s intensified crackdown on civil society following Russia’s war against Ukraine. But building a majority in the Human Rights Council to pass resolutions is no easy task.
Experts expect a backlash from Beijing, which has tried so hard to block the publication of the report. Behind the scenes, the CCP will exert all-out pressure on some council members to respond to proposals that are unfavorable to it. “We want to be constructive, but we must be fully prepared for any action against us by anyone,” said Chen Xu, Beijing’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.
“The way the Human Rights Council structures its response will affect its ability to deal with the most serious situations in the coming years,” an EU diplomat said. “It’s about perceptions of the universality of human rights, perceptions of the role of the Human Rights Council “. Western member states are at risk of delaying a human rights proposal against China, knowing that it will not have majority support. The same is true for Russia.
According to reports, since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the General Assembly has also held two votes to condemn the Russian government’s actions. In the first two ballots, the 193 UN member states cast 141 and 140 votes in favour, respectively. However, the draft resolution to suspend Russia’s membership of the Human Rights Council was passed by only 93 votes in favour, with other countries either opposing it, abstaining, or not voting at all. Does this raise questions about the legitimacy of voting?
Phil Lynch, Geneva-based director of the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), an NGO, disagrees. He said the previous two votes were more about taking a position and did not produce concrete results, and this time was different.
He told swissinfo.ch: “I think the decrease in the number of countries voting in the affirmative reflects the fact that this was a very meaningful vote and that Russia used bullying, intimidation and threats to influence the outcome of the vote. “