RI promotes rights within and without

Indonesian diplomat Makarim Wibisono has been appointed as the new chairman of the United Nations Human Rights Commission. He will lead the 61st session of the commission in March in Geneva. The Jakarta Post's Adianto P. Simamora spoke with Makarim to learn more about his views about the commission. The following are excerpts from the interview.

Question: What is the strategic value of Indonesia chairing the commission?

Answer: Since it became a member of the UN Human Rights Commission in 1991 Indonesia has often been questioned about its human rights record. But relations have changed. We are no longer a target country. Indonesia will become a leader in managing the commission and also providing it with a vision. This reflects the new trust in Indonesia from the international community that is also related to the democratic processes in this country.

Human rights issues have changed much since the establishment (of the commission) in 1946. In the past, human rights issues were solved in a spirit of cooperation to achieve the promotion and protection of human rights, but in later years these issues were often used by certain countries to defend their own interests and shame other nations.

This politicization has made discussions about human rights into wars of words. We can't discuss these issues quietly or civilly any more.

I want to return the commission to focusing on its main substantive goal and I see several ways we can achieve this, namely;

Firstly, through the efforts of the people who sit on the high commission for human rights.

Secondly, by improving the role played by the commission.

Thirdly, by working to create an advisory council to alter the role of the sub-commission on the promotion and protection of human rights.

There are many ideas about how to improve the commission in the future. This is a golden opportunity for us. The world's situation has changed, and that is why the Human Rights Commission must also change to advance and uphold human rights rather than politicize them. Given that Indonesia's human rights record is still poor, will this be a burden in your new job?

Our leadership of the commission is a two-fold opportunity.

On one hand, we can use this momentum to boost awareness and understanding of human rights issues in Indonesia so as to make more advances in the promotion and protection of human rights in our country.

At the same time, we can show the international community that Indonesia is engaged in a process toward a full democracy. If we show human rights abuses as residual cases, we can show that while Indonesia might not have been perfect in the past, it is now in a transitional period and in the future will progress from good to perfect.

We need to explain this perspective (to the international community) because in my understanding there is a positive correlation between a country's democratic processes and its human rights record.

There are calls from several UN members to eliminate the monitoring mechanism of the commission.

There are three main functions of the commission: The promotion, monitoring and the capacity building of member countries. So if we want to bring the commission function back to its core we should support these three points without shaming certain countries.

In my opinion, the monitoring mechanism cannot be separated from the commission's duties. These above three functions must be advanced together.

What about the counter-terrorism measures taken by several countries, aren't these against human rights?

There are two sides to this argument. Terrorism that kills people without discrimination is clearly against human rights; we need to understand this so we can support actions against it.

At the same time, there is also a tendency to use issues of counter-terrorism as pretexts to justify efforts to limit the rights of people, such as by limiting privacy rights.

If we talk about terrorism and human rights, we must have a clear vision of what we will support and what we have to avoid. We support efforts to avoid the taking of more innocent lives. But we must avoid overreacting in the name of counter-terrorism.

What is your opinion about the "critical country resolution" under Item 9? Some have proposed that it be eliminated?

When the commission was established in 1946, there was no Item 9 yet. So in the past it was all about standards setting.

Item 9 is related to the discussion of human rights violations in certain countries, but recently the discussions of this item took hours or even days to only discuss the so-called country- specific resolutions.

Under the item, if we talk about the human rights violations such as torture, we will see the same violations not only in one country but in many countries. So it became about thematic talks.

But in its development, the discussions on Item 9 became politicized. Some members want the commission to focus more on the problems of civil and political rights, or economic and cultural rights.

But the industrialized countries group said the agenda was important for their countries so they were against efforts to eliminate the item.

Meanwhile, the developing countries -- in Africa, Asia and Latin America -- have urged Item 9 to be eliminated or changed.