Geneva:
Commission on Human Rights
Born in War, Committed to Peace and Justice
In the 1930s the nation-states embarked on a bold adventure, the establishment of an international forum where countries could resolve their differences peacefully, without recourse to war. This forum was called the League of Nations. Eamonn De Valera was its first President.
Unfortunately, darker forces, emerging out of the heart of Europe itself, were also at work. Europe and the world were plunged into a second world war.
Just before World War II, however, a building to house the League of Nations was constructed on the shores of Lake Geneva. This building still exists. Today, it is the home of the UN in Geneva, and more particularly, the permanent location of the Commission on Human Rights established in 1945, one of the principal elements of the United Nations System.
Photo: Brother Kevin Cawley, Justice and Peace Coordinator, Edmund Rice Christian Brothers North American Province, and Brother Michael Murray, Province Leader, St. Helen's Province, Ireland, outside the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights, Geneva
Human Rights in the UN Charter
In the Charter of the United Nations the promotion and protection of human rights are assigned a fundamental priority. Within the United Nations system the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) exercises a fundamental mandate in the areas of human rights and justice. According to Article 62 of the Charter the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is charged with making "recommendations for the purpose of promoting respect for, and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all."
Established under the ECOSOC, the Commission on Human Rights carried out the United Nations mandate to promote and protect human rights. Clearly, this mandate is extensive and comprehensive. Yet, during the early years of the United Nations, the Commission on Human Rights was restricted in the exercise of its mandate by the geopolitics of the Cold War period.
Two broad strands of human rights are defined by the United Nations Conventions on Human Rights:
- Civil and Political Rights
- Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Expanding the Field of Human Rights
Shortly after his election as Pope, Pope John XXIII, issued his famous encyclical, Pacem in Terris. In a sense, this encyclical opened the windows to a light of hope that would illumine the darkness of the Cold War. Its progressive commitment to peacemaking, human rights and justice, announced the optimism of the 1960s. Although it was to be mired in the Cold War proxy wars of South-East Asia, the United States of America under the presidency of John F. Kennedy became a powerful instrument for the optimism of that time in the promotion of human rights and in the expansion of the field of human rights. For the first time, it was possible to move beyond the consideration of civil and political rights, to the exploration of economic, social and cultural rights. Much of what occurred in 1968 in Europe challenged the rigidities of the Cold War in favour of an expanded understanding of the rights of men and women to live more complete and richer lives.
Role of the Commission in Promoting and Protecting Human Rights
At this present moment when the Commission is being replaced by the Human Rights Council, a preliminary reflection on its 60 year legacy becomes possible.
It was during the 1960s, almost at the height of Cold War tensions and proxy wars, that the Commission discovered a new impetus in its responses to the situation of apartheid in South Africa. World outrage at the injustices perpetrated by the South African regime, linked to a new consciousness of civil rights in the United States, generated a powerful civil society movement that the nation states gathered at the United Nations and the Commission could not ignore.
For the first time the Commission on Human Rights established new instruments and procedures for the investigation of human rights abuses and for their remediation. These instruments, known as Special Procedures, introduced the powerful naming and shaming mechanisms that are routinely deployed today in addressing issues of injustice and human rights abuses. At the same time, equally powerful procedures to protect human rights defenders were established. While no one would claim that the Commission has fulfilled its mandate in any absolute sense, it has been effective in expanding our consciousness of human rights and in protecting human rights throughout the world despite the concerted opposition of the nation-states, themselves often the worst perpetrators of human rights abuses.