Members of the new Human Rights Council will find it hard to sabotage the work, as did happen in the previous UN High Commission on Human Rights, says Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.

She also signaled that the period of crisis and paralysis that has undermined the proceedings of the discredited UNHCHR, which was scheduled to begin its annual five-week meeting in Geneva this week, will soon be over.

The outgoing commission will commence its final session on Monday and, for the next three to five days, will work to pave the way for its successor to begin work in June this year.

The new Human Rights Council is expected to hold a 10-week session starting in June to address substantive issues, including the annual death penalty resolution and independent investigators' reports. It also will take up a recent UN report on the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as look at deteriorating rights in Belarus, Iran, Nepal, and elsewhere.

Because new members to the new Council will be elected based on their deeds, Arbour said she feels it will be difficult for them to delay action on resolutions wherever it is required.

In the meantime, officials from human rights groups said they preferred to spend the next week in Geneva resolving procedural problems arising from the creation of the Council, but do not want meaningful issues to be forgotten.

Human Rights Watch workers said they will push for the adoption of a convention against the forced disappearances of political prisoners by various states at next week's meeting.

Low status

We want a procedural session only with a decision to adopt the convention on forced disappearances as befits the new Council, said Mariette Grange, the Geneva director of the Human Rights Watch.

In the past 60 years, the Swiss-based body whose first chairwoman was US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, failed to live up to its goals because of excessive politicization.

Countries like Sudan, Russia, and Zimbabwe finagled their own elections to the commission and members like the United States blocked resolutions condemning its retention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. and Israel's violations in Palestine.

Moreover, the commission has suffered from low status within the UN system and selective treatment of countries and rights due to defensive regional groups blocks and disproportionate influence of some powerful countries.

All this is expected to undergo change because of the overwhelming approval that the members of the United Nations gave to the resolution to create new Human Rights Council March 15.

There will be universal review of the implementation of human rights of both the members of the Council as well as all other countries, which is a significant step in the advancement of rights, Arbour said.

The new members only will be voted in May and there will be no pre-conditions of who can join. For instance, old UNHCHR has voted every year since 1997 on resolutions calling on countries to establish a moratorium on the death penalty. Still, abolition of the death penalty will not be a pre-condition to membership.

Despite opposition from the United States, Israel, the Marshal Islands and Palau, 170 countries voted last week to create the Council that is expected to substantively address human rights issues.

Arbour, however, expressed confidence that Washington will fully cooperate with the Council as well as continue paying its share in the budget for the new body.

Procedural steps

She added that she was confident that the new Human Rights Council can move forward on important issues. Undue politicization to sabotage work at the Commission through measures taken to go against the intent of the resolutions will be difficult in the new Council because all elected-members will be judged against their pledges and commitments, Arbour said.

The organizing body of the out-going commission has not yet decided what issues will be address during the current, shortened session, Arbour said.

All the existing work of the Commission such as resolutions as well as reports of the special investigators will be transferred to the new council.

It is best to take some procedural steps to terminate the commission on human rights as any negotiated statements on historical achievements by the Commission could prove controversial at this point,=94 said an Asian human rights diplomat.

The first major test for the new Council will come May 9 when members states elect by absolute majority the 47 seats to the council based on the geographic representation.

We want the best candidates whose records can be held up to public scrutiny, said Reed Brody, special counsel of Human Rights Watch in New York, arguing that candidates must set a concrete agenda and take commitments not to use any procedural devises such as 'no action' resolutions.

Human Rights Watch officials added they also expected the naming and shaming of countries such as Sudan, Nepal, and Zimbabwe which are responsible for human rights violations. This will be done by periodically reviewing countries to create a culture that elevates human rights to a new high.