Can the UN hold China to account?

Here in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council is in full swing. It will be, if you want to look at it pessimistically, five long weeks of evidence of just how horrible human beings can be to one another.

Russia’s actions in Ukraine are high on the agenda, so too are Iran, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, or South Sudan.

But what about China? Last August the outgoing UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet finally published her long-awaited report on the situation in Xinjiang province. The findings were damning; credible evidence of internment and forced labour for members of the Uyghur community, amounting, perhaps, to crimes against humanity. Surely, such a serious, detailed report should be discussed by the UN Human Rights Council?

Apparently not. A proposal to simply debate the report (the mildest of measures the council can take) was defeated in October by 19 votes to 17, with 11 abstentions. So where does that leave the campaign to shed light on China’s human rights record? Where does it leave the credibility of the human rights council? Its job, of course, is to expose and hopefully end violations, and to promote respect for human rights worldwide.

That is a question we put to human rights activists in this week’s edition of Inside Geneva. After all, many of them have been working tirelessly for years to try to bring the situation in Xinjiang to the world’s attention.

Surprising optimism

I was expecting frustration and anger, and though there was some of that, there was, perhaps surprisingly, optimism too.

Zumretay Arkin of the World Uyghur Congress was concerned at the signal the council, with its decision not to debate the report, might be sending to Beijing. “If there’s no pressure coming from the international community over China, if there’s nothing happening”, she told Inside Geneva, “China is basically going to take it as a sign that they’ve got the green light to continue their abuses.”

But, she pointed out, it’s not quite the case that nothing is happening. Just this week the UN’s Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights published its review of China, expressing concern at “numerous indications of coercive measures, including forced labour” against China’s ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs. The committee called on China to end forced labour, and to stop reprisals against human rights defenders.

And, just today, the new UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk, who says he is determined to follow up on his predecessor’s Xinjiang report, used his annual address to the human rights council to remind China that he had at least had not forgotten its contents,

saying “in the Xinjiang region, my Office has documented grave concerns – notably large-scale arbitrary detentions and ongoing family separations – and has made important recommendations that require concrete follow-up”.

Geopolitical concerns?

But Türk gave that speech to the same member states who voted against holding a debate on China. Really meaningful pressure on Beijing will, in the end, have to come from them, and many seem reluctant.

China does wield influence; it has invested heavily in Africa, and almost certainly expects some loyalty there. And Beijing’s assertion, repeated again at this council session, that the UN should stop finger pointing and understand that different countries have different “paths” to human rights, does have some fans – unfortunately they are often autocratic governments themselves, who prefer to rule without any UN scrutiny.

Western governments mostly did vote to debate the Xinjiang report, but at this council session, China does not seem to be high on their agenda. Could this have anything to do with Ukraine? While Beijing has been touting its good relations with Moscow, it has also touted a “peace plan”, and while not everyone thinks that stands much chance of success, the west does want to keep China, if not on side, at least not openly supporting Vladimir Putin’s war.

“Of course there’s a geopolitical understanding of what’s happening” Raphaël Viana David, of the International Service for Human Rights told Inside Geneva. “But we have to get back to the essence of human rights, and we have to get back to the essence also of the treaties that this system was created to uphold.”

Big powers are not immune

So while we may think that big influential countries can escape scrutiny at the human rights council, in recent years that has turned out not be true.

Moscow can expect constant scrutiny not just for its actions in Ukraine, where a full UN Commission of Inquiry is now at work, but for its human rights record inside Russia as well – a UN special rapporteur for Russia is about to be appointed.

And the United States has been in the spotlight too, for systemic racism in its police forces. Just last year Colleen Flanagan, whose son Clinton was shot and killed by Dallas police in 2013, told Inside Geneva (link: https://podcasts.apple.com/ph/podcast/what-does-the-human-rights-council-mean-to-victims/id1506227169?i=1000551866320External link) how important it was for her to come to the UN in Geneva, to be listened to and taken seriously by the world’s top human rights body.

Although China may not be right at the top of the agenda at this council session, it certainly isn’t off the agenda. Human rights groups and UN human rights experts are determined to make sure the scrutiny continues. Hilary Power of Human Rights Watch told Inside Geneva that she sees that narrow vote not to debate the Xinjiang report as a sign of progress.

“The fact that we came so tantalisingly close to having a resolution on China adopted at the council has actually shattered a really important taboo about the ability to take on China, and any state, no matter how powerful.”