When the United Nations Organisation emerged in the still war-wrecked modern world, it aimed high at the avoidance of a third World War, reconstruction of wounded diplomatic relations between Governments around the tenets of peaceful dispute resolution, mutual respect for human dignity and human rights.
In further pursuit of purported safeguard of human rights, on March 15, 2006, the Human Rights Council was created (replacing the former United Nations Commission on Human Rights). The on-going 22nd United Nations Human Rights Council Meeting (Geneva, February 25 - March 22, 2013), was not a merely uneventful collection of speeches reporting about human rights situations around the globe. It rather provided room for unveilment of serious accusations, and questioned once more the UN’s ability to rise to its proclaimed goals and take visible action over stringent matters.
One of the informal meetings, ‘Human Rights in Iraq’, gathered panelists who debated over the status of the Iranian refugees presently located in former American military bases in Iraq. The meeting revolved around the outrageous recent events in Iraq, with due commemoration of the victims. Precisely, on February 9, a still unclaimed missile attack occurred in Camp Liberty, Iraq, with a death toll of seven, leaving more than one hundred Iranians severely wounded. The vast majority of the residents in Camp Liberty consist of members of the Iranian dissident organisation Mujahedin-et-Khalq. They have been relocated there from the former Camp Ashraf, at the initiative of the United Nations, in order to be subjected to a refugee determination procedure at the command of UNCHR, the UN refugee agency. In the wake of recent events, the initial apparent genuine aid provided by the UN is now deemed as a hypocrite, superficial manner of handling the situation. Moreover, it raises overt accusations of hiding insidious political interests.
The most flaring criticism was expressed by Mrs. Maryam Radjavi, the President of the National Council of Resistance in Iran. She accused the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs. Navy Pillay, of ignorance and indifference. All this happened despite the raising concerns regarding the lack of security in the Camp and the imminence of a catastrophe. In addition, she accused the High Commissioner of maintaining complete silence over recent events and of refusal to carry out the requisite enquiries in order to shed light over the facts and expose the perpetrators. The accusations went even further, regarding the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Iraq, Mr. Martin Kobler; he was accused of forgery of official documents in order to conceal the real situation in ‘Prison Liberty’ from the public eye, and thus exonerate the UN of any responsibility.
Mr. Struan Stevenson, member of the EU Parliament and Responsible for the relation with Iraq, unequivocally condemned the pledges to uphold the rights of the people in Camp Liberty as ‘hypocrite’ and ‘outrageous’. He assumed to have been regrettably wrong when he himself persuaded Mrs. Radjavi ‘against her better judgment’ to accept the relocation of the residents of Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty, based on deceitful guarantees provided by General’s Special Representative, Martin Kobler. He urged the termination of any collaboration with Mr. Kobler for the future, and the relocation of the people from Camp Liberty right away. ‘They have set up a killing bunker, and we are sitting here in Geneva, talking about human rights. This is hypocrisy, and I am not a hypocrite’, were his words.
The other panelists equally supported these accusations, further alleging complicity between the Secretary General’s Special Representative for Iraq and the dictatorship regime in Iran; also, it has been alleged that a security assessment of Camp Liberty had been carried out, only to reveal how vulnerable the premises were, and the UN, with due acknowledgment of the findings, still remained passive.
The problematic issue, raising storms of protest, is that people presently relocated in Camp Liberty are confined within its tight premises, without having the feeblest semblance of a free life. They cannot move, cannot be with their families, can neither freely express political opinions, nor enjoy freedom of conscience at shelter of reprisals. Furthermore, they cannot even access proper sanitation and adequate medication. These people are subjected to an unaffordable slow process of refugee status determination, conducted by the UN. Once granted the status of refugees, the UN promised to locate them to third countries in which they can be safe - meanwhile, they remain helpless targets of a new attack. This state of affairs is hardly in tone with the purpose of the Human Rights Council. In view of this dire situation, the criticism devoted to the failed League of Nations, for only being a by-word for empty rhetoric and diplomatic hypocrisy, appears to be equally applicable to the UN.
On the other hand, which would have been the requisite course of action in the present situation? Adopting a resolution, the seemingly strongest measure the UN can resort to, could hardly make a difference – it can barely make a Government, a country, or a terrorist movement oblige, in default of any sanction in the contrary. In the ever-lasting dispute over the binding force of resolutions, the balance seems to have inclined in favour of those who argue that they have a non-binding nature. At least, this is how resolutions presently appear in the public conscience.
To draw a conclusion, perhaps situations of this sort can only come to highlight, once more, the narrow confines of any endeavours to regulate extreme situations with the use of international law. Over sixty years ago, the UN started as a bold political alliance against the Axis, aiming at the termination of the Second World War. Probably, it will never go beyond its intrinsic political nature, and maybe the supreme purported role of safeguarding human rights worldwide is too big a mission to assume even for an organisation of its scale.
This article was written following the author’s participation at the 22nd Regular Session of the United Nation’s Council of Human Rights (February 25, 2013 – March 1, 2013), in her quality of delegate on behalf of the European Law Student’s Association.