Russia Offers Controversial Code of Conduct for UN Treaty Bodies

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D.

NEW YORK, April 26 (C-FAM) Russia last week launched an unprecedented effort to inject independence and accountability into nine commissions that review the human rights practices of nations.

The UN commissions that monitor international human rights agreements showed a need for reform as far back as the late 1990s. Backlogs and inefficiencies plague the treaty bodies, as the commissions are known, and the UN General Assembly is studying proposals to overhaul the monitoring system.

Russia proposed a code of conduct on behalf of a broad group of states during preliminary negotiations last week and it has upset many other member states.  The code requires the two-dozen members of each commission, called “experts,” to pledge their independence and establishes an ethics council to review their work. The Russian-led coalition, drawing from all geographic regions, believes the code will benefit the commissions as well as the underlying human rights.

European nations and the UN bureaucracy vocally opposed the code as an effort to muzzle treaty bodies. They prefer to increase the resources available to the commissions, and leave reform up to the members themselves.

Opponents of Russia’s approach say states should hold treaty body members to task through the process where the experts are elected. Nations periodically elect the members of treaty bodies to four-year terms. But proponents of the code don’t believe the election process has done enough to preserve the independence and impartiality of commission members.

Proponents worry treaty bodies have expanded their powers without the consent of states. The commissions frequently criticize the laws and even bills of specific states on questionable legal grounds, and have adopted onerous reporting requirements not contemplated when the treaties were signed. They also refer to their opinions as “jurisprudence,” though they are neither authoritative nor binding on states.

The proposed code also addresses the outsize influence of the UN bureaucracy and non-governmental organizations on treaty bodies. Over the past fifteen years, the commissions have succumbed to pressure to promote abortion on demand as well as special rights for homosexuals, though no human rights agreement mentions either. The nature of treaty bodies compounds the influence that the UN bureaucracy and nongovernmental organizations exert on human rights monitoring.

Treaty body experts are not compensated for their work and they can only dedicate a few weeks out of the year to reviewing state reports, which means they must depend on the judgment and opinions of the UN bureaucracy which has been at the forefront of an international campaign for abortion on demand and homosexual rights.

The make-up of the UN bureaucracy does not equitably reflect the full membership of the General Assembly, and does not always represent UN consensus. More than 40% of the office of the high commissioner’s staff comes from Europe, even though European countries make up less than 25% of the full membership of the United Nations.

Moreover, it is mostly funded through voluntary contributions, which account for just under two thirds of its $600 million annual budget. Voluntary contributions enable donors to earmark funds for specific purposes. Most of the voluntary funding comes from the United States and Europe.

Until now, the UN bureaucracy and the treaty bodies themselves have only made piecemeal efforts at reform. The delay in taking comprehensive action reflects the limited power of treaty bodies, whose role is restricted to reviewing the reports submitted by individual nations. The General Assembly will discuss the proposed code again in May.

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