Tomorrow, the United Nations will hold elections for membership in its Human Rights Council, which is tasked with addressing and redressing the world's worst crises.
Instead, the UNHRC has regrettably become a forum where dictatorships and double-standards set the agenda, indulging the very culture of impunity it is meant to combat.
Accordingly, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights has partnered with UN Watch and the Human Rights Foundation to launch a landmark report on the current candidates to the Council, holding them accountable to the international human rights law norms and foundational principles of the UN they are required to uphold.
If the UN is to effectively fulfill its mandate as guarantor of international human rights, a community of conscience must rise to challenge the candidacies of those states unfit to serve, and more critically and constructively engage with those that are questionable.
In particular, a civil society coalition is calling on democracies to challenge the candidacy of the Maduro dictatorship, which has been found to be committing crimes against humanity, and which the Office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights itself has extensively documented and called for accountability. As well, Mauritania has allowed for the enslavement of over 500,000 of its black citizens, while protecting and promoting the institution of slavery, and must not be rewarded for this heinous policy and practice with a seat on the Council.
The last campaign launched by the RWCHR successfully mobilized the community of democracies - and marshalled significant public shame - to defeat Putin's Russia in its candidacy for the last UNHRC, setting an important precedent for this year's justice initiative.
