UN human rights branch under liquidity crunch

Michelle Langrand for Geneva Options of 20 March 2024 has an unique report on the liquidity crunch and its impact on the UN human rights department. Right here her report in full:

UN secretary basic António Guterres and UN human rights excessive commissioner Volker Türk on the opening of the Human Rights Council fifty fifth session in Geneva, 26 February 2024. (UN Picture/Elma Okic)

Because the United Nations faces its worst liquidity disaster in latest historical past, specialists, employees and observers fear concerning the ramifications on human rights work. Correspondence seen by Geneva Options reveals considerations on the highest ranges of the UN human rights department in Geneva as they’re pressured to cut back their operations.

A patchwork of cost-saving measures taken over the winter holidays on the Palais des Nations in Geneva, from maintaining the warmth down and shutting the premises for 2 weeks, revealed how severe the UN’s money troubles have been after states failed to completely pay their payments in 2023. The brand new yr didn’t brighten prospects both. In January, UN secretary basic Antonio Guterres in New York introduced that “aggressive money conservation measures” could be taken throughout the organisation to keep away from working out of money by August as year-end arrears reached a file $859 million.

It couldn’t have come at a worse time for a cash-strapped UN Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as worsening human rights crises worldwide add to its workload. The Geneva-based workplace acts as a secretariat for dozens of unbiased specialists, investigative our bodies and human rights committees that rely for probably the most half on the UN’s common price range and few voluntary contributions from states. Between vacancies and journey restrictions, each insiders and outsiders fear that deliberate cuts may severely impair the UN’s essential human rights work.

Understaffed and overwhelmed

On 12 February, simply because the UN’s Geneva headquarters ready for certainly one of its busiest months internet hosting the Human Rights Council’s first session of the yr, unhealthy information got here from New York. International locations had solely paid one-third of the UN’s $3.59bn common price range for 2024, and directions from the higher-ups have been that the hiring freeze imposed in July 2023 could be prolonged all through 2024 throughout UN operations. The organisation mentioned that $350 million would have to be shaved off by way of spending restrictions on journey, convention providers and others.

Human rights our bodies, the place vacancies had been piling up within the final months, must proceed to run with diminished employees. In a letter from 23 December, UN excessive commissioner for human rights Volker Türk had already warned Council president Omar Zniber that 63 posts in over 10 investigative mandates have been ready to be stuffed whereas recruitments had been positioned on maintain. At the moment, there are energetic investigations on severe human rights abuses in Ukraine, Iran, Syria, South Sudan and Nicaragua amongst others.

“Whereas no compromise has been made by way of methodology, among the investigative our bodies have needed to slim the scope of each their investigations and their upcoming reviews,” the letter reads.

The actual fact-finding mission on Sudan was one of many our bodies instantly affected. Created in October to gather proof on atrocities dedicated over the last yr of bloody battle during which hundreds of civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced, the probe physique has struggled to start work. The unbiased specialists composing it, who aren’t paid, have been appointed since December, however as of late February, the Human Rights Workplace hadn’t been in a position to rent a assist workforce attributable to inadequate money movement, in response to a Human Rights Council spokesperson. The specialists, who’ve been mandated for one yr, are attributable to current their findings in September, with observers questioning whether or not the western-led proposal will garner the political backing it must be renewed.

That isn’t the one initiative struggling to get off the bottom. “Now we have met with some new mandates, and we realised that they barely have a workforce, if any, to assist them,” mentioned one NGO member who collaborates with the human rights mechanisms and requested to stay nameless. Observers say most investigative our bodies, even older ones, are impacted at some stage.

Kaoru Okoizumi, deputy head of the Impartial Investigative Mechanism on Myanmar (IIMM) – the biggest human rights probe workforce  – mentioned six out of 57 employees positions funded by way of the UN’s common price range have been vacant, considerably affecting their work. The IIMM, which additionally depends on a belief fund made up of voluntary donations and doesn’t depend upon the OHCHR’s price range, is coping higher than most.

Knowledgeable committees that oversee states’ compliance with worldwide human rights legislation, akin to on kids’s rights and on torture, are additionally stretched skinny. One staffer mentioned they have been required to tackle extra work than usually anticipated, for instance, having to conduct analysis and compile details about a number of nations on the similar time for one session. “It’s simply an excessive amount of!” they mentioned, including that their workforce was wanting greater than 10 individuals.

One other employee from the OHCHR’s particular procedures department, who mentioned was masking for a number of vacant spots, conceded that the standard of labor is affected in such circumstances. “In fact, you gained’t work as nicely after pulling all-nighters,” they mentioned. Türk’s letter to Zniber acknowledges that the secretariat was having hassle supporting some 60 particular procedures, that are UN-backed unbiased specialists or teams of specialists assigned to report back to the council on a particular theme or nation.

Whereas the issue of understaffing isn’t new, and plenty of additionally level to cumbersome months-long recruitment processes which might be usually incompatible with transient mandates, the scenario has worsened. To compensate for the hiring freeze, the UN has additionally more and more resorted to momentary contracts that final for a couple of months and may be exceptionally renewed for as much as two years. The 2 employees, who’ve dwelling on contract to contract for greater than a yr, mentioned that there’s concern that momentary employees could also be among the many first to go, together with consultants. “Within the meals chain of contracts, we’re on the backside,” certainly one of them mentioned.

A slim yr for the Human Rights Council

The UN’s human rights department, which receives as little as 4 per cent of the UN’s whole price range – round $142 million – simply sufficient to cowl one third of its actions, has been scrambling to chop again on spending. On Friday, in one other letter seen by Geneva Options, Türk knowledgeable Zniber that his workplace could be pressured to axe sure actions this yr.

OHCHR spokesperson Marta Hurtado confirmed the data to Geneva Options by writing: “The workplace has developed an inside contingency plan, which gives for adjustment pending the whole availability of normal price range assets grow to be out there.”

Among the many measures it proposes is suspending some actions to 2025 altogether whereas as many consultations and conferences as doable could be moved on-line with out interpretation, in response to Hurtado, for the reason that UN in New York hasn’t authorised it for digital conferences. For those who will probably be held in individual, assets to fly in specialists and civil society may even be diminished.

The UN’s latest determination that it will now not present on-line providers for conferences has drawn outcry from rights campaigners who argue it curtails the potential of civil society teams and states with little assets to take part. Whereas the transfer has been attributed to issues of guidelines, observers can’t assist however marvel if it isn’t, ultimately, concerning the cash. Echoing the considerations within the letter, Türks described the impression of those measures on participation from specialists and different stakeholders as “deeply regrettable”.

One other difficulty raised by the UN rights chief is the issue that his workplace has been dealing with in offering technical help to nationwide authorities. He gave the instance of the Marshall Islands, which requested assist in 2022 to evaluate the human rights impression of US nuclear testing in its territory within the Forties and 50s. A supply mentioned that though a primary go to lastly happened this yr, work has been delayed.

Marc Limon, director of the human rights assume tank Common Rights Group, remarked that work by the Council to assist states enhance their rights file by way of capacity-building assist was sadly “virtually inexistent” and regretted that assets couldn’t be spared for what he calls the “exhausting finish of human rights diplomacy”. “Whereas UN investigations have to be protected, there may be little menace to key commissions of inquiry because of the big budgets allotted to them within the first place,” he mentioned. Most probe our bodies have between 17 to 27 employees whereas particular procedures often have one or two assistants.

The Moroccan ambassador forwarded Türk’s letter to fellow states on Monday and mentioned a draft determination concerning the measures could be tabled for the council to think about on the finish of the session at first of April.

Human rights credibility at stake

One which has raised eyebrows however isn’t explicitly talked about by the UN rights chief is limiting nation visits by UN specialists to 1 go to as a substitute of two. Hurtado acknowledged that particular procedures and different knowledgeable mechanisms, together with probe our bodies, would see their nation visits “diminished” whereas not commenting on the variety of authorised visits.

One UN knowledgeable, talking underneath the situation of anonymity, voiced concern over the restriction. “Nation visits are extraordinarily vital as a result of they provide us an actual intimate understanding of a spot and the state will get direct suggestions on what they’re doing nicely and what they will do to enhance, whereas additionally energising civil society,” they mentioned, level out that specialists have been already barely in a position to conduct visits in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Limon commented that whereas it was a sensible alternative to chop again on among the “superfluous” debates and actions, lowering particular rapporteur journeys to nations to 1 per yr, an concept that he mentioned has been floated round earlier than, confirmed the workplace “had its priorities flawed”.

Journey restrictions may even have vital implications for legal instances. Okoizumi mentioned her Myanmar workforce solely had 65 per cent of its traditional journey price range, which is vital for the Geneva-based group to achieve victims and witnesses. “We do our witness interviews in individual as a result of we expect it’s vital in a legal investigation to be sure that interviews are being performed in a method that preserves the integrity of the testimony,” she mentioned.

The physique, arrange in 2018 by the Human Rights Council, is presently working to assist a case introduced by The Gambia in opposition to Myanmar for violating the Genocide Conference on the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice, in addition to investigations on crimes in opposition to the Rohingya on the Worldwide Felony Courtroom and Argentina.

“These are very concrete proceedings and our potential to assist them will probably be impacted by the variety of interviews that we’re in a position to conduct or the evaluation that we’re in a position to produce and share with these jurisdictions,” Okoizumi mentioned, noting that the ICJ case is especially time-sensitive as each events have been anticipated to make submissions this yr.

The worldwide lawyer mentioned this has meant shifting assets to fulfill shorter-term deadlines on the threat of placing apart different aims. “The entire level of getting an investigative mechanism is to be sure that we will gather the proof very quickly after against the law occurs, even when there isn’t an investigation or prosecution till a few years and even many years later. So, shifting our assets in that method, total could have a unfavourable impression,” she defined.

Prime specialists throughout the human rights department have additionally rang alarm bells concerning the wider repercussions of the funding disaster. In a letter seen by Geneva Options addressed to the president of the Common Meeting, Dennis Francis, dated 23 February, 10 chairs of human rights committees warned that the liquidity disaster “severely threatens the credibility and effectivity of the United Nations human rights system”.

The specialists mentioned the treaty our bodies have been “being denied even the minimal employees and operational assets required to ship their essential mandates to advance human rights” at a time of “such a extreme existential disaster of multilateralism and of non compliance with worldwide legislation”.

Referring to among the measures being thought-about, the signatories additionally argue that suspending classes “for the primary time of their over six many years of historical past for monetary causes, along with visits to forestall torture and different human rights violations” would result in “concrete and irreversible” hurt.

“When the collective safety system has didn’t honour the ‘by no means once more’ pledge of 1945, the least to do is to strengthen human rights monitoring mechanisms, in order that human rights violations are documented, even when justice appears extraordinarily difficult to serve. We notice with deep remorse that the other is being finished,” the custodians of human rights legislation wrote.

Human Rights CouncilOHCHR

This entry was posted on March 20, 2024 at 10:09 and is filed underneath books, Human Rights Council, Human Rights Defenders, OHCHR, UN.

Tags: price range, diplomacy, funding, Geneva Options, human rights, Myanmar, information, Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights, Particular Rapporteur, employees, Sudan, UN, United Nations, world