US not seeking UN Human Rights Council seat

The US has decided not to seek a seat on the new UN Human Rights Council for now, preferring instead to see how the body takes shape, a US official in Washington said today.

So far, 34 countries have declared their candidacy to be members of the new council, including Cuba and Iran.

“We’re going to take a wait and see attitude,” the US official said.

The US was virtually alone in voting against the council when the UN General Assembly approved its creation last month. US officials claimed not enough was done to prevent abusive countries from becoming members.

The Human Rights Council will replace the highly politicised and often criticised Human Rights Commission, which was discredited in recent years because some countries with terrible human rights records used their membership to protect one another from condemnation. Commission members in recent years included Sudan, Libya, Zimbabwe and Cuba.

In a letter seeking support for its candidacy for a seat on the new council, Cuba said its people have made “tremendous achievements” in human rights, most importantly in exercising the right of self-determination against “the unilateral policy of hostility, aggression and blockade imposed on it by the superpower".

Elections to the new 47-member council will be held on May 9 and its first meeting will take place on June 19 in Geneva.

The US official said the decision not to join the council was made on yesterday evening when US Ambassador John Bolton visited Washington. The US State Department planned to announce the decision later in the day.

The US was not ruling out seeking a seat later on, the official said. Countries serve a maximum of two three-year terms. Then they must leave the council before running again.

Bolton had said earlier that the US will work with other member states “to make the council as strong and effective as it can be".

The US mission to the United Nations in New York had no comment on the official’s remarks.

Human rights groups had urged the US to seek a seat on the council, saying that any such body that did not have the US voice in it could be weakened.

“The council would be vastly more powerful with the US inside the tent using its enormous influence, but the council is still going to be a very important body,” said Iain Levine, programme director for Human Rights Watch.

Under the rules for the new council, any UN member can announce its candidacy any time until the vote is completed. Members of the council must be elected by an absolute majority of the 191 UN states – 96 members.

The US lobbied unsuccessfully to have the new council elected by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly to keep out rights abusers.

To ensure global representation, the resolution gives Africa and Asia 13 seats each, Latin America and the Caribbean eight seats, Western nations seven seats, and Eastern Europe six seats.

According to the General Assembly, 34 countries have submitted their names to be candidates.

Algeria is the only African candidate so far. The Asian candidates to date are Bangladesh, India, Iran, Jordan, Pakistan and South Korea. There are 13 candidates for the six East European seats – Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia and Ukraine. Six countries are seeking the eight Latin American and Caribbean seats – Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru.

Eight countries have announced their candidacies for the seven Western seats - Britain, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Portugal and Switzerland.

If the US had decided to run, it would have been running in this group.

The council was endorsed by key human rights groups, a dozen Nobel Peace Prize winners including former US President Jimmy Carter, and 170 countries who voted “yes” on the resolution – including a surprise endorsement from Cuba.