The InterDependent

In a secret ballot, the General Assembly elected 15 new members to the United Nations Human Rights Council on May 20. The new members did not include Syria, which had withdrawn its candidacy before the vote under pressure from human rights groups and a number of nations that included the United States. Nicaragua was also not elected, having been criticized for its rights record.

Kuwait, elected in place of the Syrian candidacy in the Asian group, had also come under criticism as not exactly a bastion of human rights. The U.S. State Department said that Kuwaitis were subjected to limited freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association and that women were denied equal rights.

Five other countries that like Kuwait had never served on the council were elected for three-year terms: Austria, Benin, Botswana, the Republic of Congo and Costa Rica. The other nine, which had earlier terms on the council since it was created in 2006, are Burkina Faso, Chile, the Czech Republic, India, Indonesia, Italy, Peru ,the Philippines and Romania.

Questions had arisen about the rights records of the Republic of Congo (not to be confused with the Democratic Republic of Congo) and India, but they were not denied seats in the balloting.

The withdrawal of Syria is another strong demonstration of the growing influence of the U.S. in the council. Late last month, Syria was censured for the first time by the 47-member body.

That vote, held on April 29, condemned the Syrian government’s harsh response to street demonstrations in several cities and came on a U.S.-sponsored resolution that had to be modified twice to gain majority support – a common situation in UN agencies. But when the resolution passed by a vote of 26 in favor, 9 against and 7 abstentions, it contained a call for an investigation by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, a first for Syria, whose recent attacks on protestors and the arrest of possibly thousands of protestors Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called “barbaric” collective punishment.

In March, the U.S. was behind a successful move to suspend Libya from council membership.

Wikimedia Commons

The Syrian Army in Daraa. The Human Rights Council censured Syria for the first time as the U.S. gains more influence at the UN body.

Pressure on Syria was being exerted not only from the U.S. and other council members but also from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has been critical of violent Syrian repression and has called for an investigation into abuses. Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, also condemned Syria.

The presence of the U.S. on the Human Rights Council has made a difference during this period of popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, proving that American membership is much more effective than a boycott, as critics, many of them Republicans, demand.

President George W. Bush refused to join the council on the theory that it was politically weighted against American interests and unfairly critical of Israel. Those criticisms are no longer very defensible, as an American diplomatic team in Geneva, led by Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, has chipped away with considerable success at the solid majority of nations on the 47-member council that regularly voted to spare fellow members and other countries – whatever their gross abuses – from international condemnation and instead passed resolution after resolution against the Israelis.

On the vote to condemn Syria and ask for an inquiry, Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, Japan, Maldives, Mexico, Senegal, South Korea and Zambia were among those that voted with the U.S. and Europe.

Voting against the resolution were Bangladesh, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Gabon, Malaysia, Mauritania, Pakistan and Russia. Abstentions were Cameroon, Djibouti, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Uganda and Ukraine.

China was particularly critical of condemning Syria, a reflection perhaps of its own concern about a precedent that could be used to criticize Chinese actions against opposition figures and public protests.

Meanwhile, the Security Council has been unable to express strong criticism of Syria because of opposition from China and others. On May 11, however, Susan E. Rice, U.S. ambassador to the UN, told the media in New York that Syria's withdrawal from the Human Rights Council was the result of "good sense" from the Asia Group, "who determined that they were unwilling to lend sufficient support to a country whose human rights record is deplorable and who is in the process of killing its own people on the streets, arresting thousands and terrorizing a population that is seeking to express itself through largely peaceful means."

Efforts by the U.S. and other nations are expected to continue to change the dynamics of the Human Rights Council as conditions in Syria deteriorate further. Also coming to the council may be a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency that directly accuses Syria publicly for the first time of secretly building a nuclear reactor capable of producing plutonium that could be used in weapons production.

On April 28 in Paris, the director-general of the atomic agency, Yukiya Amano, was quoted as confirming that a building in a Syrian desert that Israel bombed in September 2007 was a covert nuclear plant. The agency has also had problems with Syria over undeclared uranium stores.

[This article was updated on May 21.]