Nord Sud XXI and the Arab Jurists Union welcome the report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and thank her for the continued commitment to contributing to the protection of human rights around the world. We would, however, like to draw attention to concerns that we hope will be highlighted in the High Commissioner’s activities during the coming months and which we noted appear to have received perhaps inadequate attention in the last few months despite the serious nature of the human rights violations.
Iraq is the most serious human rights disaster in the world. Through a combination of use of massive military force, foreign occupation, and domestic neglect more than 1,000,000 Iraqis have been killed, an estimated almost 3,000,000 Iraqis have been internally displaced and an estimated 20% of the Iraqis — more than 4 million — cannot live in their country. At the same time the Human Rights Council refuses to discuss the human rights situation in Iraq and we note that it is not discussed in your recent report. This is extremely unfortunate. As if crying out in pain at this astounding neglect, Iraqi refugees themselves have launched an initiative — the Iraqi International Initiative on refugees — calling upon the United Nations to provide a significant proportion of the resources acquired through the sale of Iraqi oil to Iraqi refugees. There already exist two Iraqi Trust Funds administered respectively by the UN Development Group and the World Bank. These funds should prioritize support to Iraqi refugees and the countries that host these refugees. We hope that the High Commissioner and every member of the Council will support this initiative to ensure that Iraqi oil money is spent on all Iraqis, especially Iraqi refugees.
More than sixty years ago the violation of Palestinians’ human rights began. This makes Palestine the longest standing human rights tragedy with which the Office of the High Commissioner and the United Nations human rights mechanisms have ever confronted. These violations started even before states pledged their allegiance to the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and they are continuing. Little effective action has been taken to ensure the protection of the human rights of Palestinians. We hope that the Office of the High Commissioner and the Human Rights Council will prioritize making an effective contribution to protecting the human rights of Palestinians. We hope that these efforts will include effective steps to encourage Palestinian unity as a show of real solidarity with the Palestinian people. Both the Office of the High Commissioner’s and the Council’s own effectiveness and efficacy is challenged by the failure to ensure the human rights of Palestinians. We hope that ending this unfortunate and unprecedented shortcoming of our human rights mechanisms will be a priority for the Office of the High Commissioner in the coming months.
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