The UN Human Rights Council will replace the 60-year-old UN Human Rights Commission.

On March 15, 2006, the UN General Assembly voted 170 to four to create a new human rights body – the UN Human Rights Council – to replace the 60-year-old UN Human Rights Commission. Canada voted in favour. The U.S. cast one of the four votes in opposition. The other countries voting against the Human Rights Council were Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau. Belarus, Iran and Venezuela abstained.

Why create a new human rights body?

The old Geneva-based UN Human Rights Commission has come under intense criticism because it has allowed some of the world's worst human rights abusers to sit as members on the commission. Past members have included Libya, Sudan, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, and Cuba – all countries with poor human rights records. Critics say countries often use their membership on the UNHRC to protect other rights abusers from censure or criticism, politicizing the organization to the point that it had lost much of its credibility.

What are the main differences between the new and old UN human rights bodies?

• Membership: The new UN Human Rights Council will have 47 members: 13 from Africa, 13 from Asia, six from eastern Europe, eight from Latin America and the Caribbean, and seven from a block of western Europe and other countries that includes Canada and the United States. The old Human Rights Commission had 53 members. The new council, despite being smaller, gives two more member seats to Asia and eastern Europe, while cutting the representation from western Europe and other countries group (like Canada and the U.S.) from 10 to seven.
• Selection: Under the new system, a simple majority of all of the assembly's 191 member countries will be required for admission, not just a majority of the countries that actually vote. The admission vote will be carried out by secret ballot. Under the old system, regional slates were put forward for approval by the UN's Economic and Social Council.
• Review procedures: The new UN Human Rights Council will carry out reviews "on a periodic basis" of the human rights records of all countries in the General Assembly. Serious violators could be suspended from the council by a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly. Supporters say this will prevent countries from using their membership to shield themselves from censure. There was no review process at all in the old UN Human Rights Commission.
• Duration: The UN's old rights body met for just six weeks a year – usually in the spring. The new UN Human Rights Council will meet throughout the year and for longer periods. The idea is to respond to developing human rights crises faster and to shine the spotlight on human rights violators all the time, rather than just a few weeks a year.

Why did the U.S. vote against the new human rights Council?

The U.S. says the membership rules for the new UN Human Rights Council aren't tough enough to ensure that rights violators wouldn't get a seat. The U.S. wanted members to be elected by a two-thirds majority (as Kofi Annan had also wanted), rather than a simple majority. It also wanted any country under UN sanction to be explicity prevented from joining the council. But the initial blueprint was watered down in subsequent politicking. The council's new blueprint only calls for members to "take into account" the candidate member's human rights record.

Despite voting against the new council, U.S. ambassador John Bolton said the U.S. would co-operate with the body. The U.S. has a veto only in the 15-member Security Council, not in the General Assembly.

Why did Canada vote in favour?

Canada, the EU, and some human rights groups like Amnesty International share some of Washington's misgivings with the new council. But Canada voted in favour, saying the whole effort to reform the UN's human rights body could be scuttled if members agreed to reopen negotiations or postpone the vote. Canada was among several UN members to attempt to find a compromise the Americans could support – specifically by getting other countries to agree to eventually address the key issues the Americans raised. But the effort failed.

How does all this affect the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights?

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights – former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour – will still have a job and her office remains a key department of the UN Secretariat. Arbour strongly supports the new Human Rights Council.

"Failure to adopt the proposal threatens to set back the human rights cause immeasurably," she wrote in February 2006.

Arbour acknowledges the new body is not an ideal blueprint. But she says "there is no reason to believe that more negotiating time will yield a better result." In her view, the new council will "deal more objectively, and credibly, with human rights violations worldwide."