Brussels, 12/11/2009 (Agence Europe) - The question of the objectivity of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations (HRC) was central to a hearing of the sub-committee on human rights of the European Parliament on Tuesday 10 November. In response to MEPs who criticised, amongst other things, what they saw as the political bias of the HRC when dealing with these issues in Palestine and the occupied territories, Alex Van Meeuwen stressed that it was too early to come to any conclusions. The current president of the Human Rights Council for the period 2009-2012 said that it is "too early to report back definitively on the activities of the Human Rights Council, as the first two years of its creation have been mainly given over to setting in place its institutional architecture, meaning that it is only in the last year that the HRC has been able to concentrate on its basic activities" (it was created in 2006). An initial assessment of the work of the HRC will be carried out in 2011, which led a number of MEPs to plead for a more flexible and pragmatic approach to dealing with human rights issues in the world and for greater involvement of civil society in the assessment process.
The human rights situation in Palestine and, in particular, the recent resolution of the HRC which takes up the recommendations of the mission led by Judge Richard Goldstone, focused the MEPs' attention (as is often the case in the HRC itself). Richard Howitt (S&D, UK) expressed his disappointment at the politicisation and lack of objectivity of the HRC, which is "aggravated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict". He advised the EU to "abandon the logic of blocs, because in a number of cases, this just leads to lowest common denominator positions". His countryman Charles Tannock (ECR) spoke out against the fact that the HRC has "a serious political bias, homing in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as shown by the disproportionate number of resolutions on Israel". Other MEPs, such as the Belgian and French Greens Frida Brepoels and Nicole Kiil-Nielsen, highlighted the need for action on this resolution and the importance of fighting impunity. (A.B./transl.fl)