The United Nations' top human rights official, who has criticized many countries and been attacked by them in response, said Friday that she is quitting after only one term.High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour announced that she has told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that she will be unavailable for a second term in the job, which is a magnet for criticism from a broad range of countries. She acknowledged that she found much of the criticism had been hurtful, but she said, "I am not quitting because of this pressure. On the contrary, I have to resist the temptation to stay to confront it, she said.
Ms. Arbour has been critical of many governments, ranging from Zimbabwe to China. Her criticism of the American-led "war on terror" drew an angry response from the United States in 2005. She criticized China's use of the death penalty and said the U.S. war on terror was eroding the worldwide ban on torture, noting reports of secret U.S. detention centres. John Bolton, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN at the time, said it was "inappropriate and illegitimate for an international civil servant to second-guess the conduct that we're engaged in the war on terror, with nothing more as evidence than what she reads in the newspapers."
At the end of a 2006 trip to Russia that included a visit to Chechnya said expressed serious concern about reports that Chechen security forces use torture. "I have no doubt that these phenomena are more than mere allegations, and have a considerable basis in reality," Ms. Arbour said.
Israeli ambassador Itzhak Levanon last year rejected Ms. Arbour's criticism of Israeli military action against Palestinians. "The misguided and deeply disturbing statement by the high commissioner blatantly disregards events on the ground," Mr. Levanon said. A recent mistake by her office inflamed anger among pro-Israel groups. While the office later clarified that Ms. Arbour did not endorse a provision in an Arab human rights charter equating Zionism with racism, her original support for the document led to a fury of reaction among pro-Israel websites, with some blog entries calling for her death.
Zimbabwe Justice Minister Patrick Anthony Chinamasa told the council on Monday that his country "joins others in voicing its discontent with the office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights for repeated dereliction of duty." Last year Ms. Arbour denounced as "shocking" police violence against opposition party members in Zimbabwe.
Ms. Arbour, however, has been well-regarded by human rights organizations. "The criticism she receives is a tribute to the good work that she's been doing," said Amnesty International spokesman Peter Splinter. "The criticism she receives is directly proportional to the work she does." Mr. Splinter said Amnesty regretted that she is leaving. "She's done a very good job. She's brought direction to the office. She's brought resources. She's been outspoken. She's been unflinching in challenging human rights violations in big and powerful countries as well as in countries not so big and not so powerful. It's going to be a real challenge for the secretary-general to replace her."
The previous article is very much in the MSM tradition of the "she annoys everyone, so she's doing her job well" spin. However, on the Heritage Foundation website, I found some things the AP neglected to mention:
During her tenure as High Commissioner, Arbour oversaw a number of positive actions, such as criticizing the government of Zimbabwe for attacking and oppressing its political opposition. However, Arbour has also demonstrated a troubling willingness to provide cover for authoritarian regimes. The following examples are from the past year alone:
During a February 2008 trip to Cuba, Arbour praised the Communist nation for taking "significant" actions in the field of human rights and demonstrating "unprecedented positive engagement with the UN human rights system." She cited the visit to Cuba by the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, and the country's announcement that it intends to sign international agreements on civil and political rights and on economic, social, and cultural rights. As the human rights group UN Watch pointed out, Arbour should not have praised Cuba but instead should have criticized the government's widespread oppression of its citizens and rejection of human rights standards.
Arbour traveled to Iran in September 2007 to attend a human rights conference sponsored by the Non-Aligned Movement. As reported by the Islamic Republic News Agency, Arbour "expressed pleasure with being at the NAM meeting and described Iran's representation office in the U.N. in Geneva as 'very good.'" Although the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has not posted her remarks, she apparently failed to mention Iran's extensive human rights abuses and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's infamous statements that Israel "must be wiped off the map" and that "Zionists are the true manifestation of Satan."
Arbour has also displayed a troubling lack of clear thinking on the primacy of rights, including on the following occasions:
In early 2008, Arbour praised the Arab Charter on Human Rights as "an important step forward" to help "strengthen the enjoyment of human rights" and welcomed its entry into force despite the fact that the Charter explicitly calls for the elimination of "Zionism." This phrasing is commonly known among Islamic nations to mean the elimination of Israel. Only after being challenged did Arbour retreat and clarify that she did not endorse that part of the Charter.
In January 2008, Arbour encouraged the U.N. to push for "economic and social rights, including the human rights responsibilities of companies, to be given greater attention in the run-up to the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Arbour criticized Western countries' "overemphasis" on political and civil liberties at the expense of economic and social rights. It is doubtful that the victims of political repression in Belarus, Cuba, China, Sudan, or Zimbabwe would agree. Arbour specifically faulted anti-terrorism laws for making human rights activists shift their attention from economic and social issues to the supposed erosion of civil liberties caused by anti-terrorism efforts. Arbour went further to dismiss economic freedom: "[The] assumption was that prosperity will look after the right to health and education, which I think is a completely misguided view of what human rights are about. There's no reason to assume that prosperity will transform itself naturally into any form of social justice."
Arbour refused to stand up for free speech after cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten elicited riots and protests in Islamic countries. The newspaper requested the submissions after hearing that artists were refusing to illustrate works about Islam due to fear of retribution. Arbour wrote the Organization of the Islamic Conference emphasizing that she understood Muslims' concerns and deplored "any statement or act showing a lack of respect towards other people's religion," and charged U.N. experts in religious freedom and racism to investigate the matter. This gave justification to efforts by the OIC to constrain freedom of speech in the U.N. Human Rights Council.