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	World must protect Darfur civilians from war crimes by The Assocated Press Sudan - Darfur   March 12, 2007   The U.N. Human Rights Council High Level Mission to Sudan, mandated to assess the situation in the nation"s western Darfur region, delivered a critical report back to the council"s fourth session beginning Monday in Geneva, Switzerland.   Excerpts from a report by a U.N. human rights team investigating crimes against humanity in Sudan"s Darfur region.   - "Today, millions are displaced, at least 200,000 are dead, and conflict and abuse are spilling over the border into Chad."   - "Making matters worse, humanitarian space continues to shrink, and humanitarian and human rights actors are increasingly targeted."   - "Killing of civilians remains widespread, including in large-scale attacks. Rape and sexual violence are widespread and systematic. Torture continues."   - "Arbitrary arrest and detention are common, as is repression of political dissent, and arbitrary restrictions on political freedoms."   - "Violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have increased by all parties to the conflict since the signing of the DPA (Darfur Peace Agreement).   - "The deteriorating security situation since the DPA has resulted in tens of thousands of newly displaced - now totaling well over 2 million displaced people in Darfur - and 30,000 more refugees in the camps in Chad, with new arrivals daily."   - "Today, the conflict is also having a growing impact in the Central African Republic. If the conflict in Darfur is not meaningfully and equitably resolved, bringing peace and security to its people, it could increasingly engulf the region."   - "U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for a peacekeeping force along both borders."   - "Arbitrary arrest and detention in Darfur by government security forces continue."   - "Individuals reportedly targeted include lawyers, community leaders and others who work on human rights, Sudanese who work for international organizations or who are perceived as cooperating too closely with the international community, individuals who share the predominant ethnicities of various rebel groups, and Sudanese who display opposition political views."   - "Since September 2006, there has been a wave of arrests of Darfurians in Khartoum."   - The human rights team "has also received credible information of torture, inhumane and degrading treatment by National Security and Military Intelligence during attacks and in the treatment of detainees."   - "The methods used include beatings with whips, sticks and gun butts, prolonged sun exposure, starvation, electrocution, and burning with hot candle wax or molten plastic."   - "Many detainees are held incommunicado without charge or access to a lawyer."   - "In the last six months of 2006, more relief workers were killed than in the previous two years combined."   - "Just during the month of December 2006, 29 humanitarian vehicles were hijacked and 430 humanitarian workers relocated in all three Darfur states."   - "Witnesses, victims and observers we met repeatedly confirmed joint action between government forces and armed militia in assaulting civilian targets in Darfur."   - "Arms continue to flow freely, and heavily armed militia continue to operate across the territory of Darfur with impunity."   - "Rebel abuses of human rights and humanitarian law also continue ... Civilians have been targeted in armed rebel attacks, and acts of rape and torture by rebel forces have also been documented."   - "There have been reports of attacks on aid convoys by rebel forces, putting the populations in these areas in a particularly precarious situation."   - "The situation is characterized by gross and systematic violations of human rights and grave breaches of international humanitarian law."   - "War crimes and crimes against humanity continue across the region ... The principal pattern is one of a violent counterinsurgency campaign waged by the government of the Sudan in concert with Janjaweed militia, and targeting mostly civilians."   - "The mission further concludes that the government of the Sudan has manifestly failed to protect the population of Darfur from large-scale international crimes, and has itself orchestrated and participated in these crimes."   - "The government of the Sudan should cooperate fully in the deployment of the proposed U.N./AU peacekeeping/protection force without further delay."   - "The Security Council should take urgent further action to ensure the effective protection of the civilian population of Darfur, including through the deployment of the proposed U.N./AU peacekeeping/protection force and full cooperation with and support for the work of the International Criminal Court."   - "The General Assembly of the United Nations should request the compilation of a list of foreign companies that have an adverse impact on the situation of human rights in Darfur."   -U.N. member states "should also be prepared to prosecute individuals suspected of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur through the exercise of universal jurisdiction in national courts outside of the Sudan."   - , "Rape and sexual violence are widespread and systematic. Torture continues. Arbitrary arrest and detention are common, as is repression of political dissent, and arbitrary restrictions on political freedoms. Mechanisms of justice and accountability where they exist are under-resourced, politically compromised, and ineffective."   " Every state has the responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, and that, where a state is unable or unwilling to do so, it is the responsibility of the international community to take action to ensure effective protection," the report said.   "In assessing the human rights situation in Darfur ... we considered that the effective protection of civilians in Darfur was the central issue at hand."   Click on the link below to access the report. Visit the related web page
	UN human rights chief stresses importance of universal review of countries’ records by UN News / New York Times   14 March 2007   UN human rights chief stresses importance of universal review of countries’ records.   A key test of whether the United Nations Human Rights Council is working better than its derided predecessor will be the functioning of the “universal periodic review,” the new mechanism that will allow the records of all countries to be scrutinized, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said today.   Presenting her annual report to the Council in Geneva, Ms. Arbour said the universal periodic review must be applied to each country impartially and objectively, and in such a way as to answer any criticisms of selectivity.   The mechanism was introduced last year after the Human Rights Council was established to replace the Commission on Human Rights, which had long been criticized for ignoring serious abuses in many countries. It allows all countries to be evaluated on a regular basis on their rights record.   Ms. Arbour told delegates attending today’s Council session that the strength of universal periodic review is that it has the potential to be not just a pro-forma assessment of a situation, but a detailed analysis highlighting a country’s shortcomings, difficulties and setbacks, drawing on the work of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society groups.   She stressed that each nation being examined must show total transparency and open-mindedness to ensure that the Council emerges with the best possible report, particularly in the drafting of solutions to any identified problems.   In her report Ms. Arbour also said that two essential themes guided the work of her office: economic, social and cultural rights, and the issue of equal rights for women. She noted that regional bureaux are being opened soon in Central Asia, North Africa and West Africa.   March 11, 2007   Concern over new U.N. Human Rights Council, by Warren Hoge. (New York Times)   The United Nations Human Rights Council begins a three-week session in Geneva on Monday amid expressions of frustration from rights advocates at its early performance and alarm over proposals that might weaken it further.   “So far it’s been enormously disappointing, and the opponents of human rights enforcement are running circles around the proponents,” said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch.   The council was created in a 170-to-4 vote of the General Assembly a year ago to replace the Human Rights Commission, which had been widely discredited for allowing participation by countries like Sudan, Libya and Zimbabwe who used membership to prevent scrutiny of their own records.   When the 47 members of the new council were elected last March, tighter entry requirements succeeded in keeping the most notorious rights abusers off the panel, and there was some hope of less politicized behavior.   But member countries from Africa and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, an association of 57 states promoting Muslim solidarity, have dashed those hopes by voting as a bloc to stymie Western efforts to direct serious attention to situations like the killings, rapes and pillage in the Darfur region of Sudan, which the United Nations has declared the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.   Most notably, as happened with the commission, the council has focused its condemnation almost exclusively on Israel. It has passed eight resolutions against Israel. The council has cited no other country for human rights violations.   Mr. Annan’s successor, Ban Ki-moon, told a human rights gathering in December that he was “worried by its disproportionate focus on violations by Israel.” The council, he said, “has clearly not justified all the hopes that so many of us placed on it.”   The new session is the fourth formal meeting in the last nine months, and an immediate issue attracting attention as a measure of the council’s purposefulness is what it will do about an assessment mission to Darfur that was barred from entering Sudan last month. The options are to publish a factual report, publish a report with recommendations or take no action.   “What they do with the Sudan mission will be a bellwether for the future of the council,” said Peter G. Splinter, the Amnesty International representative in Geneva.   “Sudan took the floor last week and said they rejected the mission entirely, and they are going to have the backing of the Organization of the Islamic Conference,” he said. “If the council ducks the situation in Darfur, that’s not going to speak highly to its credibility.”   The Islamic group is expected to cite the fact that Israel barred an assessment mission from entering the Gaza Strip in December and that its leader, Desmond Tutu, the former South African archbishop and antiapartheid campaigner, decided to make no formal recommendations.   “It was a mistake for that mission not to write a report, but if you allow governments to prevent a report by simply not admitting a mission, then you’re giving them a way of silencing the council,” Mr. Roth said.   In another potential blow to the council’s effectiveness, a proposal is circulating that would do away with many of the council’s 41 rapporteurs, the experts who produce sometimes graphic reports of abuses in individual countries. The proposal specifically ensures the continuation of the mission that monitors the Palestinian territories.   Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based organization that follows United Nations human rights activities, said, “The situation is grim, and one example is that the one aspect that has always been thought of as a bright spot — the experts — may be eliminated.”   The United States, though not able to vote or offer a resolution, can make speeches, exercise the right of reply and apply diplomatic pressure.   Mark Lagon, the deputy assistant secretary of state for international organizations, said the United States would be working to persuade democratic nations now participating in regional bloc voting to “vote their consciences.”
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