Human rights double standards
Sri Lanka is sitting for the periodic bi-annual test in Geneva, where the UNHRC (UN Human Rights Council) is examining how this country is governing itself, 76 years after Independence from 450 years of foreign rule. The UNHRC chief read out on Friday an oral update on Sri Lanka that goes well beyond the mandate that the Council was originally empowered to deal with, including areas falling within the sovereign discretion of states. He has referred to constitutional provisions on power-sharing arrangements, fiscal policy and budgetary matters, administrative reform, and even the appointment of the IGP.
Meanwhile, this is the first time the UNHRC is meeting since the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza began and continues to grow. The double standards in the conduct of international affairs—lecturing countries on human rights on the global stage while ignoring the annihilation of the Palestinian people— are on show for all the world to see. As Sri Lanka’s statement to the UNHRC asked, ‘Where are the resolutions and where are the accountability project’?
As the 55th session of the UNHRC opened, the UN SecretaryGeneral echoed what the world at large is witnessing. He used the very words "double standards," a now increasingly used lexicon at international assemblies, when he referred to the need to respect all human rights and pointed out how the authority of the UN’s highest decision-making body, the Security Council, has been undermined. He called for serious reforms to its composition and working methods—clearly a reference to the use, and abuse, of the veto that is vested with the big powers.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), it seems, is turning out to be a one-stop-shop running Sri Lanka from Geneva, with no accountability for the outcomes on devolution, budget, finance and administration, and now even public appointments.
With regard to economic, social and cultural rights and debt raised by the OHCHR, it was the developing countries which championed these in the global human rights debate, so they received equal priority with civil and political rights, leading to the adoption of parallel Covenants.
These rights were not envisaged as an opening for further intrusion and ‘mandate creep’ from Geneva into the financial decision-making spaces of the very debt-ridden developing states. Much-needed reform is already under active discussion by competent experts in other fora.
The 'North Star' of the UNHRC or the OHCHR in Geneva cannot be the protection of human rights universally, surely, given the blatant double standards prevailing, vis-à-vis the ongoing annihilation of the people of Palestine.
Both of them are unable to take a single meaningful step on the televised genocide in war-torn Gaza, the shocking illustration of ‘food as a weapon of war’ including the delivery of rationed 'blood-soaked flour' to a people on the brink of famine.