Public Statements

Here's to you, Mrs Robinson
Forthright, respected and ethical, Mary Robinson is just the type of person the UN needs. In September, she is leaving. What went wrong?

By Steve Mason

At this week's opening of the UN Human Rights Commission, Mary Robinson, the current High Commissioner for Human Rights, announced that she will not be seeking another term as head of the UN agency.

Her departure is unfortunate for both the UN and the global human rights movement. Over the last five years, the former Irish President has been an exceptional and vocal champion of human rights across the world, a sharp critic of rights-abusing governments and a fine example of how to accomplish strong results with a limited mandate and even more limited means. Her efforts to mainstream human rights issues throughout the entire UN system have been effective in changing the ways with which many global issues are dealt.

While her efforts have been lauded by many individuals, non-governmental organizations and UN officials, they have not earned her high praise from many of the world's more influential countries. In order for her to have any legitimacy or effectiveness in her position, she could not avoid criticizing governments where criticisms were due. This was all fine and good when she was speaking about Libya or Iraq, but Mrs Robinson was standing for a cause, not only against certain countries. So when she aimed her sights on the US, Russia and others, the response she got was less than favourable.

Such countries wasted no time in exploring the various means at their disposal to push for Mrs Robinson's departure. Although no country can remove someone in her position, they can ensure that their agency remains chronically underfunded so that results are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. They can also use their considerable international clout to apply pressure to the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, who appoints High Commissioners. This puts Mr Annan in a tight spot - he knows that in order to ever achieve effective international cooperation, he needs to keep the big players involved. Some concessions must be made. The result is that Mrs Robinson felt pressure on the political end and operational frustration on a daily basis. Who would want to stick around under such circumstances?

Some observers might be quick to decry this as a failure of the UN, but this is not actually the case. Thousands of people owe their security and, in fact, their lives to the results that Mrs Robinson and her agency have achieved, and the UN system as a whole has benefited from a more rights-based approach. Rather than aiming our criticism at the UN - an easy scapegoat, and one that some governments are all too eager to use - we should follow Mrs Robinson's laudable example and focus our disapproval on those governments who deserve it: the ones that continually try to subvert the UN for their own benefit, using the mechanisms of international cooperation to support only their own narrow interests.

Steve Mason is the Executive Director of the United Nations Association in Canada.