UNITED NATIONS, May 9 (UPI) -- Shortly after U.N. General Assembly President Jan Eliasson announced Tuesday the elected members of the new Human Rights Council -- a list that included known abusers China, Russia, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia -- judgments in favor and against flew from all sides.
"This is a truly historic occasion," Eliasson told reporters Tuesday at U.N. headquarters in New York. "We are establishing the new council as a basis with... the legitimacy needed for the very important work of human rights."
Ann Bayefsky, editor of the Eye on the U.N. Web site, was less buoyant.
"The balance of power will remain with the Asian and African groups, the majority of which are not democratic," said Bayefsky, referring to geographical groupings that allotted 13 seats each to Asia and Africa, comprising 55 percent of the council's votes. "This is bound to have an important impact on the credibility of this council."
Ambassadors, diplomats, ministers and rights experts weighed in on the potential of the council. Some saw great progress while others were unimpressed, but all placed the onus squarely on the council's 47 members, a group now saddled with establishing an effective and stringent rights review process and making a fresh start from the long-discredited Human Rights Commission.
Critics claim the new body will be no better than the commission, which was maligned for including known rights abusers such as Sudan, Libya, Zimbabwe and Syria. Those four and other abusers chose not to run for membership in the new council because of its more stringent membership requirements, more frequent meetings, and an involved peer review process, characteristics proponents point to as positive steps.
"There are a number of governments that did get elected that we would prefer not to be there, but this was almost inevitable," said Human Rights Watch Executive Director Ken Roth. "We've made real progress, the spoiler governments -- the governments who have a history of trying to undermine the protection of human rights through their membership on the old commission -- are now a significantly reduced minority.
"If the governments on the council are willing to live up to the commitments that they have made, we have a very good chance of creating an institution that is effective in promoting human rights around the world."
Those governments, which were chosen by majority vote -- at least 96 votes in the 191-member assembly -- and which can serve a maximum of two consecutive three-year terms included: China, a nation that has prosecuted journalists and violently cracked down on recent rural uprisings; Cuba, a communist regime and outspoken defender of rights abusers; Saudi Arabia, where women are forbidden to drive and show their ankles in public; and Russia, a democracy in retreat that has seen several journalists killed in recent years. In fact, 22 of the 47 council members rated partly free or not free in Freedom House's global rankings.
"That simply says that the inefficiencies of the previous commission may well have carried over, which sadly we predicted when we voted against this council," said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton. "The next two or three month period is critical to see how this will progress."
Rights activists took a similar stance on the development.
"The hard work really begins now, because everything depends on what this council does once it starts meeting," said Matt Easton of Human Rights First. "It's not a revolutionary departure from the commission. It is only slightly better, but it's a great opportunity, and these don't come very often in slow-moving bureaucracies such as the United Nations."
The United States, believing the membership bar still too low and one of only four countries to vote against the council, did not run for election, saying it wanted to first see how the council functioned. Bolton promised the United States would work to make the Geneva-based body strong and effective and would consider membership in the future.
"I'm of the opinion that we can actually have more influence from the outside," he said. "I'm convinced it's a matter of acting vigorously in Geneva and I'm sure our colleagues over there will do that."
The council will meet June 19 in Geneva, where it will gather at least three times per year, including a main session of ten weeks or more. New members, who are to "uphold the highest standards," according to a U.N. resolution passed in March, now have a year to establish the process by which U.N. member states will be periodically reviewed for rights violations.
"Each member has a duty to ensure that the council will be strong and effective and give the best possible protection to victims of human rights violations all over the world," Amnesty International said in a statement. The rights group added that members "have a heavy responsibility to create the right structures and procedures."
