UN Commission on Human Rights: history, structure, competence

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:41

The United Nations (UN) is a large body with a complex and ornate structure. One of the highest priority tasks for which the organization was created is the protection of human rights in the world. To resolve this issue, a special unit was created - the UN Commission on Human Rights.

The commission has a long history, which will be outlined in this article. The prerequisites for the creation of such a body, the main stages of its activities will be considered. And also analyzed the structure, principles and procedures of the Commission, as well as its competence and the most famous events that took place with its participation.

Prerequisites for the establishment of the Commission

In 1945, the largest military conflict in the history of our planet ended - the Second World War ended. Even the approximate number of dead people is still the subject of heated and lengthy debate among historians. Cities, countries, families and human destinies were destroyed. A myriad of people during these bloody six years have becomecripples, orphans, homeless and vagrants.

The atrocities committed by the Nazis against people of other beliefs and nationalities shocked the world. Millions of people were buried in the ground in concentration camps, hundreds of thousands of people were liquidated as enemies of the Third Reich. The human body was used one hundred percent. While the man was alive, he worked physically for the Nazis. When he died, his skin was removed to cover furniture, and the ashes left after the burning of the body were carefully packaged in bags and sold for a penny as fertilizer for garden plants.

The experiments of fascist scientists on living people knew no equal in cynicism and cruelty. In the course of such experiments, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, injured and received various injuries. People were tormented by the creation of artificial hypoxia, creating conditions comparable to being at an altitude of twenty kilometers, they deliberately inflicted chemical and physical damage in order to learn how to treat them more effectively. Experiments on the sterilization of victims, grandiose in scale, were carried out. Radiation, chemicals and physical abuse were used to deprive people of the opportunity to have offspring.

It was quite obvious that the concept of human rights obviously needed to be improved and protected. Such horrors could not be allowed to continue.

Humanity is fed up with war. Satiated with blood, murder, grief and loss. Humanistic ideas and sentiments were in the air: helping the wounded and those affected by military events. War, no matter howstrange, united the world community, brought together the common people. Even relations between the capitalist West and the communist East seemed to be in a thaw.

Destruction of the colonial system of world order

In addition, the end of World War II marked the end of the colonial era. England, France, Germany, Portugal, Holland and many other countries that had dependent territories - colonies - lost them. Lost officially. But the processes and patterns built over centuries cannot be destroyed in a short period of time.

With the acquisition of formal independence, the colonial countries were only at the very beginning of the path of state development. They all gained independence, but not everyone knew what to do with it.

Relations between the population of the colonial countries and the former colonialists still could not be called equal. For example, the African population continued to be oppressed long after the end of World War II.

In order to prevent the above-described horrors and world cataclysms from now on, the victorious countries decided to establish the United Nations, within which the UN Commission on Human Rights was created.

Establishment of the Commission

The creation of the UN Commission on Human Rights is inextricably linked to the creation of the United Nations. The UN Charter was signed by representatives of participating countries in June 1945.

According to the charter of the United Nations,one of its governing bodies was ECOSOC - the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. The competence of the body included the entire list of issues related to economic and social development in the world. It was ECOSOC that became the progenitor of the UN Commission on Human Rights.

It happened in December 1946. The UN member states unanimously agreed with the need for such a commission to work, and it began its work.

The Commission officially met for the first time on January 27, 1947, in the small town of Lake Success near New York. The meeting of the commission lasted more than ten days and ended only on February 10 of the same year.

Eleanor Roosevelt became the first chairman of the Commission. The same Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the wife of the President of the United States of America Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the niece of Theodore Roosevelt.

Commission issues

The competence of the UN Commission on Human Rights included a wide range of issues. The interaction between the Commission and the UN was limited to the provision of analytical and statistical reports.

The Commission was in charge of combating slavery, discrimination based on sex and nationality, protecting the rights to choose a religion, protecting the interests of women and children, and many other issues provided for by the Convention on Rights.

Structure

The structure of the Commission gradually changed and expanded. The Commission included several units. The main role was played by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and themaintaining and protecting human rights. In addition, structural subdivisions of the commission were created in the UN member states to consider specific precedents and appeals.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is a position whose duties include monitoring the implementation of the provisions of the Universal Declaration for the Protection of Human Rights around the world. From 1993 to the present, there have been 7 people who have held this responsible post. Thus, José Ayala-Lasso from Ecuador, Mary Robinson from Ireland, Sergio Vieira de Mello from Brazil, Bertrand Ramcharan from Guyana, Canadian Louise Arbor and South African representative Navi Pillay have managed to visit the UN High Commissioners for Human Rights.

Jordanian Prince Zeid al-Hussein has been in office since September 2014.

Subcommittee on the maintenance and protection of human rights - an expert body whose task is to address specific issues on the agenda. For example, the subcommittee has worked on issues such as forms of modern-day slavery, protecting human rights while countering terrorism, indigenous issues, and many other issues.

The election of representatives from countries participating in the United Nations to the Commission took place according to the following principle. There were no permanent members on the Commission, which implied an annual procedure for their selection. The choice of representatives was handled by the higher body of the Commission - ECOSOC.

The latest composition of the commission included representatives of 53 UN states distributed among regionsworld in a certain ratio.

Eastern Europe was represented by 5 countries: Russian Federation, Ukraine, Armenia, Hungary and Romania.

Asian members of the Commission included representatives of such countries as the People's Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, Nepal and others. A total of 12 countries represented Asia.

Ten countries in Western Europe and other regions - France, Italy, Holland, UK, Germany and Finland. This group also included the United States of America, Canada and Australia.

Eleven UN member state representatives on the Commission were from Latin America and the Caribbean.

The African continent was represented by 15 states. The largest of them are Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa.

Creating a regulatory framework for the Commission

For successful work on the protection of human rights, a single document establishing such rights was needed. The problem was that the views of the participating countries involved in the work of the Commission were too divergent on this issue. Differences in the standard of living and ideology of states affected.

The upcoming document was planned to be called differently: the Bill of Rights, the International Bill of Rights, and so on. Finally a name was chosen - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 1948 is considered the year of adoption of this document.

The main purpose of the document is to fix human rights at the international level. If earlier in many progressivestates, such as the United States of America, England, France, developed internal documents regulating these rights, now the problem has been brought to the international level.

Representatives of many countries took part in the work on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. In addition to the Americans Eleanor Roosevelt and George Humphrey, the Chinese Zhang Penchun, the Lebanese Charles Malik, the Frenchman Rene Cassin, as well as Russian diplomat and lawyer Vladimir Koretsky actively worked on the declaration.

The contents of the document combined excerpts from the constitutions of the participating countries that establish human rights, specific proposals from interested parties (especially the American Law Institute and the Intra-American Judicial Committee), and other human rights documents.

Convention on Human Rights

This document has become the most important normative act to protect the rights of people. The importance of the Convention on Human Rights, which entered into force in September 1953, is extremely great. It's really hard to overestimate it. Now any citizen of the state that has ratified the articles of the document has the right to apply for help to a specially created interstate human rights organization - the European Court of Human Rights. Section 2 of the Convention fully regulates the work of the court.

Each article of the Convention enshrines a certain right that is inalienable to every person. Thus, such basic rights as the right to life and liberty, the right toto marriage (Article 12), the right to freedom of conscience and religion (Article 9), the right to a fair trial (Article 6). Torture (Article 3) and discrimination (Article 14) were also prohibited.

The position of the Russian Federation in relation to the Convention

Russia has ratified all articles of the convention, signing under their strict observance since 1998.

However, some additions to the Convention have not been ratified by the Russian Federation. We are talking about the so-called protocols No. 6, 13 (restriction and absolute abolition of the death pen alty as capital punishment, Russia currently has a temporary ban), No. 12 (general prohibition of discrimination) and No. 16 (consulting national courts with the European Court on human rights before making a decision).

Main stages of the Commission's work

Traditionally, the work of the Commission is divided into two stages. The main criterion by which they are distinguished is the transition of the body from the policy of absenteeism to active participation in proceedings on the facts of human rights violations. Absenteeism in this case refers to the theoretical declaration of human rights and freedoms and the dissemination of such ideas without any specific actions.

Thus, the Commission at the first stage of its existence (from 1947 to 1967) fundamentally did not interfere in the affairs of independent states, only publicly expressing its opinion on this or that issue.

Completion of the work of the Commission

The history of the Commission ended in 2005. This body was replaced by another - the Council for Human RightsUN person. Several factors contributed to the process of shutting down the Commission.

Criticism against the commission played the biggest role in the decision to liquidate the commission. The commission was blamed mainly for the fact that it did not fulfill the functions assigned to it in full. The reason for everything was that, like any body in the field of international law, it was constantly subjected to political pressure from the leading countries (including groups of countries) of the world. This process led to an extremely high level of politicization of the Commission, which gradually led to a decline in its authority. Against the background of these processes, the UN decided to close the Commission.

This process is quite natural, since conditions in the world have changed significantly. If, after the end of World War II, many states really thought about maintaining peace, then after a few years a fierce struggle for world hegemony began, which could not but affect the United Nations.

The Human Rights Council has retained the old principles of the Commission's work, making some changes.

Mechanisms of the Council

The work of the new body was based on the special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council. Consider the main ones.

Visiting countries is one of the procedures. It comes down to monitoring the situation on the protection of human rights in a particular state and preparing a report to a higher authority. The arrival of the delegation is carried out upon a written request to the country's leadership. In a numbercases, some states issue a document to the delegation, allowing unimpeded visits to the country at any time if necessary. When the delegation's visit ends, the host state is given expert advice on how to improve the human rights situation.

The next procedure is to receive messages. It is expressed in the reception of messages about committed or about to be committed acts of human rights violations. Moreover, the rights of both a specific person and a wide range of people can be violated (for example, the adoption of a regulatory legal act at the state level). If the representatives of the Council find the reports justified, then they make an attempt to correct the situation through interaction with the government of the state where the incident occurred.

Three structural divisions of the Council - the Committee against Torture, the Committee on Enforced Disappearances and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women - have the right to independently initiate an investigation into the information received. Mandatory conditions for the implementation of this procedure are the participation of the state in the UN and the reliability of the information received.

The Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council is an expert body that replaced the Sub-Commission on the observance and protection of human rights. The Committee consists of eighteen experts. This body is called by many the "think tank" of the Council.

Criticism of the work of the Council

Despite the UN's efforts to maintain its reputation as a human rights body, criticism of its work continues. In many ways, the current situation is explained by the tense situation in the world political arena. For example, many countries are negatively in favor of participation in the work of the Council of the Russian Federation.