A New Challenge Facing Supporters of Human Rights

Non-government organizations (NGOs) attending the Special Committee on Human Rights in Geneva on October 2 learned of increasing challenges to the ability of some organizations to support human rights.

In a new development, the right to specifically identify a country in a resolution through the main human rights organizations of the United Nations has been disallowed.  The Commission on Human Rights has requested the “Sub-Commission not to adopt country-specific resolutions or thematic resolutions which contain references to specific countries.”

“This is a hard concept to understand,” comments Jonathan Gallagher, United Nations Liaison director for the Seventh-day Adventist Church and a participant at the Special Committee. “One wonders how human rights are supported if you cannot even name an offending country in a resolution. While it is true that there are many aspects of human rights that are generally applicable to all countries, not all countries are offending in the same way as such notorious regimes as North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia and the Sudan.”

It seems that some countries are unhappy about being mentioned in UN reports dealing with human rights violations and that this decision was made to appease them, says Gallagher. He adds that “attempts to reduce the specific nature of allegations of human rights abuses will not help solve the problem. In such a situation it is more important than ever that human rights organizations speak out clearly in areas such as the violation of religious freedom and the intimidation of religious minorities.”

The Seventh-day Adventist Church has been committed to religious freedom and human rights for more than a century, and established a religious liberty organization in 1893-the International Religious Liberty Association-which continues to press for justice and freedom of conscience for all.