At
UN,
Rapporteurs
Run Wild, De
Zayas on
Richard Falk,
Ziegler,
Geneva
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 29 --
Halfway
through UN
human rights
rapporteurs
week, with
three press
conferences a
day ranging
from Iran to
democracy,
North Korea to
migration but
excluding
transnational
corporations,
it's time for
a review.
Monday
after Inner
City Press
asked Alfred
de Zayas, the
UN's
"Independent
Expert on the
promotion of a
democratic and
equitable
international
order,"
about France
controlling UN
Peacekeeping
four times in
a
row, a
more in depth
questions and
answer was
possible.
Inner
City Press
asked de Zayas
about the
gloss that his
mandate was
created by
Cuba, the
blockade on
which was
being
denounced by
state
after state on
Tuesday
morning.
De
Zayas said
there was a
yearly
General
Assembly
resolution on
the topic, and
finally Cuba
proposed a
mandate and
expert on the
topic, which
Jean Ziegler
in mind.
But
the way
selections are
made, he said,
is by a group
of five
ambassadors
(he named
them), and one
of them said
no to Zeigler.
And
so de Zayas
got the post
at the last
minute, with
an OK from US
Ambassador to
the UN in
Geneva Eileen
Donahoe. The
US is not
favor
the mandate.
He will meet
with the US
Mission in New
York this week
(not with
Samantha
Power, he
noted) and ask
how they'd
like to see
the mandate
used.
After
he got the
mandate he was
hounded, de
Zayas said,
for a book he
wrote
about German
suffering and
displacement
in World War
Two. Inner
City
Press on
Monday asked
obliquely for
his views on
the Nuremberg
trials: not
positive.
Inner City
Press put
this in a
story
which de Zayas
retweeted. He
says he wants
coverage;
hence this
story,
intended to
provide some
off-beat
illumination
of the UN
special
rapporteur
process, and
thus to serve
that process,
in some way.
All this
is
lower profile,
he
acknowledged,
than Richard
Falk. He
described
Falk at a
gathering of
UN
rapporteurs,
isolated, with
the other
rapporteurs
not wanting to
be seen as
associated
with him. But
Falk
is not
concerned with
that. (Inner
City Press has
previously
reported
on US diplomat
Rick Barton
joking about
Richard Falk
as his tennis
partner.
Small world.)
Inner
City Press
asked de Zayas
if the Office
of the High
Commissioner
for
Human Rights
offers any
training for
rapporteurs.
He said there
is an
"induction,"
two days in
length, in
which
rapporteurs
are
told to "first
do no harm" --
oh that the UN
in Haiti had
followed that
advise, now in
the time of
cholera -- and
to not
needlessly
antagonize
governments.
Just do your
work, de Zayas
said the
rapporteurs
were told, and
perhaps
through time
some good will
come of it.
Perhaps. We'll
have more,
deeper into
Rapporteurs
Week. Watch
this
site.
, 
