NGO Monitor Analysis (Vol. 1 No. 7) 5 May 2003
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch criticize the UNHCR for growing politicization
As the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) finished its annual session, a number of NGOs concluded that the Commission has further deteriorated in its commitment to fulfill the commission's mandate to promote and protect human rights worldwide. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International were especially vocal in criticizing the Commission for failing to discuss the world's most notorious human rights violators, such as Iran and China. Joanna Weschler, UN representative for Human Rights Watch, argued that serious rights violators are escaping scrutiny by forming voting blocks within the commission. "What is really extremely upsetting in this situation that has developed right now, we see complete forgetting about victims...We have a clear concerted effort on the part of violating countries to weaken the commission, to possibly get rid of any country resolution and to pull out any teeth of U.N. human rights monitoring."
On Israel, Amnesty International again showed its strong ideological and political agenda by welcoming the "strong language" of the resolution regarding "Israeli settlements," but noting that it was disappointed that the NGO's call for the deployment of human rights monitors was not included in the resolution. AI and HRW failed to note the abuse and debasing of the UNCHR as a platform for anti-Israel propaganda.
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