SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the If-you-can't-beat-'em,-join-'em-and-change-'em? dept.
China Appointed to Influential UN Human Rights Council Panel
Last week, China was appointed to a seat on the Consultative Group of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Jiang Duan, an official at the Chinese Mission in Geneva, was nominated and confirmed by the Asia regional grouping and will hold the seat until March 2021. The appointment places China on an influential panel that oversees candidate recommendations for UN human rights experts and is likely to raise some concerns given China's less than perfect record on human rights issues.
As China has become more integrated in international organizations over the past 40 years or so, particularly within UN bodies and agencies, the scope of issue areas it is willing to not only engage with but also shape has expanded.
[...] The Consultative Group, the body to which China was just appointed, is charged with recommending candidates to fill positions according to the mandates of the Special Procedures, the Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Expert Mechanism on the Right of Development. The panel consists of five ambassadors, each representing the five UN regional groups, and facilitates the appointment of experts on issues of freedom of speech and religion; water and sanitation; housing; food; health; poverty; and conditions in countries such as Cambodia, Iran, Myanmar, and North Korea.
[...] In recent years, China has actively submitted proposals to the UNHRC as a member, albeit not without pushback. These resolutions have been challenged for their framing of human rights issues and the right to development within a state-centric approach, privileging the sovereignty of states over groups of people and communities. Experts have been outspoken about the implications of such proposals, raising concern that an overemphasis on dialogue and consensus might dilute the commitments to transparency and accountability. Separately, in July 2019, two coalitions of states sent competing letters to the UNHRC about China's Xinjiang policies — one criticizing China for its massive detention program and the other opposing the "politicization" of human rights issues and supporting Chinese counterterrorism and deradicalization efforts. More recently, there has been heightened international outcry about human rights in China amid the harsh measures Beijing put in place to combat the coronavirus.
(Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 11 2020, @01:51PM (6 children)
If the clown shoes are allowed to run things, it absolutely does, yes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:39PM (1 child)
Remind me who are the clowns?
"The CIA, with significant support from Britain and other allies, would kidnap people and fly them to countries where they could be tortured. Detainees spent months or years in secret prisons beyond the rule of law. In the dungeons of Gaddafi, Mubarak or Assad they were beaten and hung from the walls, and in some cases had their genitals cut with a scalpel."
"Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States, and also let me say, we believe that Secretary Rice is lying, there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop."
"First the ... government denied renditions ever took place... [t]hen in 2008 it finally admitted the truth. Now, years later, documents relating to a key period have reportedly been accidentally destroyed when they were soaked in water."
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 12 2020, @02:49PM
You did something way less bad so you're not allowed to call industrial scale atrocities bad? Do fuck off.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday April 12 2020, @06:10PM (3 children)
Ironic given who the US president is.
Shirley the Republican party could have done better.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 12 2020, @06:33PM (2 children)
Did you see the 2016 primaries? They couldn't. And don't call me Shirley.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday April 12 2020, @07:34PM (1 child)
I don't vote in their primary. But I thought any one of those clowns would be a better choice than Trump.
I didn't like GW Bush. But I would gladly have him back in a heartbeat over Trump. At least he had some sense of honor, decency and a partly working moral compass. Not that I'm trying to praise the guy as a great man.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 12 2020, @10:34PM
I watched the first few debates. You're incorrect. Every one of them would have been worse from a generic Democrat's perspective, a generic Republican's perspective, and from my perspective off where all three of us sane folks live.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.