(Geneva, March 12, 2003) - The United States and the European Union have a
special responsibility to pull the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights back from the brink of disaster, Human Rights Watch urged today.

The annual meeting of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights is due to begin
on Monday, March 17. Several of the world's worst rights violators are now
among its 53 members, Human Rights Watch said.

"The sustained attention of the world's major powers can still reverse this
dangerous trend," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights
Watch. "But if the United States and the European Union don't engage
themselves systematically in the work of the Commission this year, it could
slide into irrelevance."

With Libya assuming the chairmanship of the Commission, media attention has
focused on the abusive governments who have gained seats there in recent
years. Indeed, governments who have felt the sting of human rights scrutiny
have sought to immunize themselves against criticism by working
energetically to limit monitoring by the Commission.

The West, in particular the European Union countries and the United States,
have been largely indifferent to this trend, and at times complicit in it,
Human Rights Watch said. The European Union still sponsors most country
resolutions and takes the lead on many other initiatives at the Commission.
But its effectiveness has been diminished in recent years by its internal
consensus rule, under which resolution drafts and statements have settled
at the most watered-down version presented by one of the fifteen.

Human Rights Watch called on the Commission to pass resolutions on several
countries, including: China, Colombia, Iran, North Korea, the Russian
Federation (Chechnya), and Turkmenistan.

Human Rights Watch has also urged the appointment of a Special
Representative to monitor counter terrorist measures worldwide and their
impact on human rights, as well as the appointment of a special envoy to
secure the release of children abducted in northern Uganda.

Human Rights Watch Press release