The UN’s complex reality
"Simply put, we [Australians] do not have to listen to any one else. We are the bench mark. The rest of the world needs to catch up . . . Who cares what the UN thinks? They have achieved nothing in their history.
"Talk, talk, talk . . . that is all the UN does. Their resolutions are not worth the paper they are written on . . . Australia has a proud human rights record and the UN is a joke."
Bruce Nesbitt, online reader of The Age (Melbourne, 20 July 2006)
Ah, Bruce. If only you were right. There are many who might wish that ‘talk’ was all that the UN did, rather than commit crimes of rape, forced prostitution, bestiality and child sexual abuse, as has reportedly occurred with impunity in Timor-Leste.
There are many others, however, who will be suprised and disappointed by Bruce’s claim that the UN has achieved nothing worthwhile. The thing is, the United Nations is a huge and complex organisation. Like any major institution, it has failings that are difficult to shift, and its peacekeepers are no more virtuous than any other troops simply because they wear the blue helmet.
But the United Nations also has many major achievements to its credit. To take but one example, UNICEF or the UN Children’s Fund, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, is currently the world’s largest supplier of malaria nets and vaccinates an extraordinary 40% of the world’s children. So stick that in your arm, Mr Nesbitt.
I wish Australia did have the sort of human rights record which Bruce (if that really is your name) is so confident would inspire pride. To cite Brian Walters’ litany of Australia’s recent efforts to undermine human rights at the UN, Australia:
- voted against a UN resolution to strengthen the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Fifty-two nations voted in favour. Australia was in a minority of two (with the US).
- opposed a resolution to put more work into framing a right to food. Australia was the only dissenter.
- abstained from a resolution to formulate a right to development. Only two other nations took the Australian position.
- abstained from a vote to support the realisation of economic rights in all countries, and which proposed a detailed study of problems developing countries face in their efforts to achieve decent standards of living. Forty-nine countries voted in favour.
- voted against consideration of a resolution expressing concern about the impact of economic globalisation on the full enjoyment of international human rights. Australia was the only country to do so.
If that were not bad enough, the UN’s Human Rights Committee — independent experts who oversee and interpret the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights — have made no fewer than 23 recent decisions against Australia regarding violation of human rights that country is obliged by law to uphold.
It is disturbing and dangerous that Australians can have such a mistaken view of their country’s attitudes and practices. It smacks of ignorance and hubris and a sad lack of human rights education. Worse, it allows political leaders to get away with committing human rights violations, and undermine the efforts of others to protect them. The United Nations will only ever be as principled and effective as its constituent member governments. And that includes Australia.
Maybe Bruce was referring to Australia’s historic human rights record? After all, we used to be proud supporters of the human rights work of the UN. In the past we were even willing to allow criticisms by UN bodies to make a difference to us: witness the decriminalising of homosexuality in Tasmania after an appeal to the Human Rights Committee under the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR.
This makes our current position even more embarrassing – we helped set the UN up, supported it as a means of dealing with human rights abuses around the world without resorting to violence, and now we’re turning our back on it.
Yes, the UN is imperfect, but compare it to the current alternative: you do something we don’t like and we’ll bomb you!