Castan Centre Interns

Bridi Rice - Report on the Australian Delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council Internship

Being an Australian Delegate at the United Nations Human Rights Council is as much about politics as it is about law and human rights.  Mostly though, it’s about being a diplomat and I can’t say that I’ve worked out what that is - yet.

Australia has a Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.  It was here that I spent two months with a team of Australian diplomats, representing Australia and the world’s interests on the newly formed UN Human Rights Council.  Sounds cutting edge, and indeed it was.  But some days, it felt more as though we were on a knife’s edge.  Fighting for human rights in the field I understand: you want to stop a government from persecuting its citizens, you want to stop a conflict, you fight for the right of a child to attend school, for the rights of a woman’s autonomy.  Fighting for human rights wearing a suit and drinking a cocktail in one of the world’s wealthiest cities is a different game.  I call it national interest ping pong. 

The Human Rights Council, when in session and when out of session, consists of member states, observer states and groups of interested parties such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and a host of others.  Interestingly enough, it is only these interested parties who employ human rights specialists to work on the Council.  The remaining bulk of the Human Rights Council are diplomats.  These people are trained to deliver their national line in lands far from home.  They are often lawyers, often negotiators, always experienced and generally doing the best damn job they can manage for their nations and human rights globally. However, by virtue of being career diplomats, they rarely have any prior interest or expertise in the human rights arena. 

Someone’s ‘really important niece who hadn’t been home to Cambodia in 15 years’ sat in front of the Cambodian desk, and it wasn’t just developing countries who lacked human rights expertise in their delegations.  It was a treat to find that Austria had an ex-peacekeeper in their delegation and damn near extraordinary that the Israeli delegation comprised a career human rights lawyer from the US.  The remaining delegations are diplomats.  These are the people who deliver each country’s interests when it comes to the crunch of drafting resolutions, designing human rights mechanisms and getting tough on those countries who continually and repeatedly abuse their human rights obligations.  There is no surprise then, that negotiations are made with competing national interests in mind, oh, and what were they again? Oh yes, human rights objectives too.

So what happens then, on a Human Rights Council which has polarised negotiating parties, member states that include some of the world’s greatest human rights violators, and voters that vote according to their regional group line?  What happens when the only people who have ever seen a human rights violation are the maligned Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Internationals of this world?  What happens when you, as a 22 year old Australian who is firmly ‘misaligned’ with current Australian government human rights policy find yourself on the world’s human rights platform? 

The answer is easy: you have an existential crisis romantically similar to that of Meursault in Albert Camus’ The Outsider.   

Sitting in a room with delegates whose countries you have visited and worked in, listening to their vast self-appraisals, makes your blood curdle at their denial of reality.

Sitting in a room where delegates deny discrimination on the basis of gender and sexual preferences makes you think of gay and lesbian friends back home. 

Sitting in a room as Amnesty International delivers 23 000 postcards addressed to your government requesting the release of David Hicks from Guantanamo Bay requires self control to put it mildly.

But what does this existential crisis really mean?  It can be one of two things for a young person heading into the human rights arena.  It can be enough to make you ashamed, frustrated, angry and want to turn your back on your idealistic dreams of making the world a better place.  Or, it can be the best damn signal you can receive that you’re doing the right thing. 

Questioning what your nation is about, questioning what you are about, questioning what is happening in our world and engaging in open consideration of perspectives other than our own is vital.  This process is a microcosm of what the Human Rights Council should stand for.  This process is vital for our world to overcome our defensive and polarised negotiating positions in Geneva and it’s vital to the objectives of the Human Rights Council that all too often seem to be forsaken; this process is vital to the protection and promotion of human rights.  This process is vital for our world to learn from past and current mistakes, it is vital to preventing future ones.  I repeat; it is vital that we start learning. 

And so, learn I did.

The Human Rights Council is a political organ – and my jury is out on whether or not it can ever be an effective one.  One thing is certain though, it will be a near sighted world that will allow the Human Rights Council to be hamstrung by the ping pong game it is currently playing.  It is my hope that the Human Rights Council, with the suggestions made in the recent design of the Universal Periodic Review mechanism, opens itself to human rights expertise beyond what its diplomats can offer.  It is my hope that it engages in constructive and meaningful dialogue.  It is my greatest hope that, if the Council does not do these things, that it comes under intense global scrutiny and criticism.

Working in Geneva was sensational.  There is no doubt.  As a 22 year old, to sit behind a little white sign whose black letters spell the French, ‘Australie’ and deliver a speech striking out against child prostitution and pornography and the use of child soldiers in Sri Lanka was what every young human rights advocate dreams of.  To spend evenings attending speeches and calls to action from some of the world’s greatest human rights workers is simultaneously heartbreaking and inspiring.

It is without a doubt that I can say that Australia’s current representatives to the UN are amongst the most professional and well regarded diplomats Geneva has to offer.  And, by and large, whether agreeing or disagreeing with Australia’s position on particular human rights concerns, our diplomats are a thoughtful, considered and far-sighted lot who work in an intensely frustrating negotiating context.  I return to my original musing about what a diplomat is, and I must say, I have no further conclusion.  But, if it includes being part of trying to build a better international mechanism to protect and promote human rights, then giving it a go for a while has been nothing but an honour and hopefully; a taste of what will be more to come.

It is with the greatest appreciation to the Castan Centre that I thank them not only for this opportunity, but for their capacity to provide hope to a host of young human rights advocates and their futures.