In 2010 every single group put forward no more candidates than there were vacancies. Since the original membership vote in 2006, only once, in 2008, have the majority of regional groups offered a genuine choice of candidates. It is even more so when one considers that this was not a one-off occurrence, but part of a persistent trend. Clean slates have the opposite effect.įor these reasons, the fact that three of the five regional groups presented clean slates this last election is deeply disappointing.
Elections should promote the participation of a diverse set of countries, from different regions, with different backgrounds, all of which earn their seat by demonstrating their commitment to human rights in a competitive election. So-called ‘clean slate’ elections, when a regional group puts forward the same number of candidates as there are seats available, undermine the diversity and the quality of the Council’s membership. Where there is no choice, the quality of the Council suffers, as does its performance and output. In other words, there should be a choice. The clear implication is that election to the Council should be competitive. General Assembly resolution 60/251 establishing the Council declares that all members must be elected by secret ballot, taking into account the candidates’ “contribution…to the promotion and protection of human rights”. The Council is, after all, an intergovernmental body, and both its credibility and its effectiveness are entirely dependent on the character of its membership. The case for genuine competition in Human Rights Council elections hardly needs repeating. Only an unheard of mass abstention could have altered the result. Rather, in three of the five regional groups, the number of candidates exactly equalled the number of vacant seats, making a surprise result not simply unlikely but almost impossible. This is not because the winning States had engaged in more dynamic and compelling campaigns than their opponents. It is fair to say that the results of the latest Human Rights Council elections came as no surprise to most observers.
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