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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: 2) by gtomorrow on Sunday April 12 2020, @08:53PM (5 children)
All I'm sayin' is "He who is without sin cast the stone."
Happy Easter, Mr Buzz.
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Sunday April 12 2020, @08:55PM
Oops. The first stone.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 12 2020, @10:29PM (3 children)
You're confusing commuting punishment with accepting the fox's application for a henhouse guarding job. One is mercy and compassion, the other is being a bloody fool.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Monday April 13 2020, @07:38AM (1 child)
And you're compartmentalizing.
To be perfectly honest, I can see your point (fox guarding the henhouse). That was also my initial reaction. I even agree with you!
Then I thought about how this present situation arose some decades ago and instead of refusing to have dealings with governments which have such a miserable record regarding human rights, America's/Western Europe's love of cheap plastic toys has turned a blind eye. Then I thought about just the last two decades regarding American human rights affairs (Guantanamo, Assange, Patriot Act, FISA, Snowden, airport security theatre, cellular triangulation...oh, the list goes on and on). And this is just an extemporaneous short list of publicly known subjects. Any argument is cognitive dissonance. They're all "oranges in a tube sock" but you just wanna see blood.
"We" put China, Saudi Arabia, [name your "enemy" here] in the place of power they occupy today, knowing full well how these governments operate in terms of human rights, in exchange for cheap plastic toys and the prime materials to make cheap plastic toys. And now we're crying "fox guarding the henhouse"?
Pick your manual: 1984 or Brave New World...or make a Venn diagram.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 13 2020, @02:30PM
No, I'm really not. I'm just calling bullshit on the whole "you did something bad, though not remotely as bad, so you can never speak out about atrocities" argument. You do not have to be perfect to say something is wrong. But if you're one of the most wrong nations in the world, you do not belong in charge of whatever it is you're wrong on.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Monday April 13 2020, @07:49AM
OFFTOPIC: and now I get the "boss in your underwear" joke! 🤣🤣🤣
Hey...it was new to me!