United Nations: Sudan has withdrawn its candidacy for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council following strong criticism from human rights and pro-democracy groups.
Sudan’s UN Mission said in a letter obtained on Friday by The Associated Press that “it is no longer interested in taking up one of the vacancies available in the Human Rights Council”.
Sudan’s president, Omar Al Bashir, is accused of genocide and war crimes in Darfur, and his government is accused of human rights violations elsewhere. But Sudan was virtually guaranteed a seat on the 47-member council as one of five African candidates for five African seats.
Sudan’s brief letter to Djibouti, which is the current coordinator for East African countries at the UN, gave no reason for pulling out of the November election in the UN General Assembly.
Philippe Bolopion, UN director for Human Rights Watch, welcomed the decision, saying, “The worst human rights offenders are slowly recognising they are not welcome on the Human Rights Council.”
“Sudan joins notorious rights violators Syria, Iran, Belarus, Sri Lanka and Azerbaijan whose hypocritical aspirations to sit on the Council have properly led to embarrassing retreat,” he said.
The Geneva-based council was created in March 2006 to replace the UN’s widely discredited and highly politicised Human Rights Commission. But the Human Rights Council has also been widely criticised for failing to change many of the commission’s practices, including putting much more emphasis on Israel than on any other country and electing candidates accused of serious human rights violations.
Much of the blame lies in the UN system where regional groups select candidates for seats on UN bodies, often based on which country is next in line, not on merit. In many instances, the blocs will try to ensure that the election is not contested, so for example, it will approve only three candidates if there are three vacant seats.
