By Benny YP Siahaan
The Jakarta Post | Sat, 06/16/2012 8:23 AM
The recent coverage in the national media concerning Indonesia’s participation in the 13th session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva on May 23-25, 2012 has been confusing and misleading in several ways.
First, it said that the UPR is a “trial” for Indonesia. The Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolution 5/1 (2007) stated that the UPR mechanism is a cooperative mechanism based on objective, reliable information and interactive dialogue. Indeed, it is neither a talk-shop nor a beauty contest to cover-up a country’s depravity, since it would be almost impossible to do that in this Internet age. Objectivity, transparency, non-selectivity, constructive dialogue and sharing for best practices are the core values of the UPR.
Moreover, there is a generally accepted notion in the human rights community that no country is perfect in terms of human rights. Hence, it would be inaccurate to say that the UPR is a court room by which to judge the country’s human rights policies and actions.
Rather, it is an objective peer-review mechanism. In fact, the creation of the UPR is inspired by the Trade Policy Review Mechanism of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) of NEPAD/African Union. In short, the UPR is a platform for a country to reflect its human rights policies and its efforts to promote and protect human rights.
Second, as an extension to the fallacy, there is a question about the necessity for Indonesia to attend such a meeting. If it is only to be reviled why should it bother to go to Geneva? The UPR mechanism is a compulsory mechanism for any UN member, regardless of its size and influence. The US, China and India have conducted their UPR. For Indonesia, this is the second time for the country to be reviewed, together with another 14 countries in this 13th session of the UPR mechanism, after its first UPR in 2008.
Third, the Indonesian Foreign Minister is the head of the Indonesian delegation for its UPR. Then, there is a question of whether it is appropriate to send a minister to such a meeting. In the UPR mechanism, the higher the level of the head delegation demonstrates the level of seriousness of a country in dealing with these issues. The highest head of delegation attending the UPR so far is at vice president level (Ecuador).
Fourth, the higher the number of recommendations, the worse a country’s human rights track-record is. There have been efforts also to compare the number of recommendations given to Indonesia during its first UPR in 2008 and its recent number of UPR recommendations. In its first UPR, Indonesia received 10 recommendations. The reason for the low number of recommendations at the time was due to lack of clarity on the modalities of the UPR, since it was the first one to be conducted after it was established by the General Assembly in 2006.
Indeed, Indonesia might have had more than 10 recommendations in 2008 if the statements of countries had been clarified. In actual fact, the number of recommendations is not so important. What really matters is the percentage of the number of recommendations accepted by a country. It is natural that the bigger the country, the higher number of recommendations it will receive since size reflects the complexity of a country’s problems. A small island-state like Palau will not receive high number of recommendations.
In the current UPR, Indonesia received 180 recommendations (not 179 as has been widely reported) in which 144 recommendations (80 percent) were accepted by Indonesia and the remaining 36 recommendations (20 percent) are set to be reviewed for further consideration. For a comparison, the US, which is often dubbed a human rights champion, received 228 recommendations of which 173 recommendations (75.8 percent) were accepted and 55 recommendations (24.2 percent) were rejected. In addition, not all recommendations received by Indonesia were a form of criticism. Many of them were also made as a form of encouragement to what Indonesia is currently doing. For example, there are nine recommendations requesting Indonesia to continue its current efforts to ratify the Convention on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
Fifth, it is said that there is a lot of attention being given to the issue of abuse of freedom of expression and freedom of religion. Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa had already explained at a press conference on May 25, 2012 that the number of recommendations for those two issues was a small fraction of all recommendations that Indonesia received in the UPR. Indeed, Indonesia received 21 recommendations or 0.11 percent for those two issues.
On the other hand, there was a report claiming that there has been a significant increase in the abuse of freedom of expression and freedom of religion in the last three years (Kompas, May 27, 2012). In this regard, there is a need to put in proportion the problem that national data may not necessarily reflect the international community’s priorities or attention. Of course, this does not mean that the low percentage of recommendations for those two issues will be used to legitimize omission or not to seriously address the problem.
The lesson that can be drawn from the above mentioned fallacies and misperceptions is that more dissemination of information on the UPR to the general public is needed so that such confusion does not happen in the future.
The writer is a participant of Sesparlu batch 46/Senior Leadership Training Course in the National Institute of Public Administration.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/06/16/fallacies-and-misperceptions-upr.html
The Jakarta Post | Sat, 06/16/2012 8:23 AM
The recent coverage in the national media concerning Indonesia’s participation in the 13th session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva on May 23-25, 2012 has been confusing and misleading in several ways.
First, it said that the UPR is a “trial” for Indonesia. The Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolution 5/1 (2007) stated that the UPR mechanism is a cooperative mechanism based on objective, reliable information and interactive dialogue. Indeed, it is neither a talk-shop nor a beauty contest to cover-up a country’s depravity, since it would be almost impossible to do that in this Internet age. Objectivity, transparency, non-selectivity, constructive dialogue and sharing for best practices are the core values of the UPR.
Moreover, there is a generally accepted notion in the human rights community that no country is perfect in terms of human rights. Hence, it would be inaccurate to say that the UPR is a court room by which to judge the country’s human rights policies and actions.
Rather, it is an objective peer-review mechanism. In fact, the creation of the UPR is inspired by the Trade Policy Review Mechanism of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) of NEPAD/African Union. In short, the UPR is a platform for a country to reflect its human rights policies and its efforts to promote and protect human rights.
Second, as an extension to the fallacy, there is a question about the necessity for Indonesia to attend such a meeting. If it is only to be reviled why should it bother to go to Geneva? The UPR mechanism is a compulsory mechanism for any UN member, regardless of its size and influence. The US, China and India have conducted their UPR. For Indonesia, this is the second time for the country to be reviewed, together with another 14 countries in this 13th session of the UPR mechanism, after its first UPR in 2008.
Third, the Indonesian Foreign Minister is the head of the Indonesian delegation for its UPR. Then, there is a question of whether it is appropriate to send a minister to such a meeting. In the UPR mechanism, the higher the level of the head delegation demonstrates the level of seriousness of a country in dealing with these issues. The highest head of delegation attending the UPR so far is at vice president level (Ecuador).
Fourth, the higher the number of recommendations, the worse a country’s human rights track-record is. There have been efforts also to compare the number of recommendations given to Indonesia during its first UPR in 2008 and its recent number of UPR recommendations. In its first UPR, Indonesia received 10 recommendations. The reason for the low number of recommendations at the time was due to lack of clarity on the modalities of the UPR, since it was the first one to be conducted after it was established by the General Assembly in 2006.
Indeed, Indonesia might have had more than 10 recommendations in 2008 if the statements of countries had been clarified. In actual fact, the number of recommendations is not so important. What really matters is the percentage of the number of recommendations accepted by a country. It is natural that the bigger the country, the higher number of recommendations it will receive since size reflects the complexity of a country’s problems. A small island-state like Palau will not receive high number of recommendations.
In the current UPR, Indonesia received 180 recommendations (not 179 as has been widely reported) in which 144 recommendations (80 percent) were accepted by Indonesia and the remaining 36 recommendations (20 percent) are set to be reviewed for further consideration. For a comparison, the US, which is often dubbed a human rights champion, received 228 recommendations of which 173 recommendations (75.8 percent) were accepted and 55 recommendations (24.2 percent) were rejected. In addition, not all recommendations received by Indonesia were a form of criticism. Many of them were also made as a form of encouragement to what Indonesia is currently doing. For example, there are nine recommendations requesting Indonesia to continue its current efforts to ratify the Convention on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
Fifth, it is said that there is a lot of attention being given to the issue of abuse of freedom of expression and freedom of religion. Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa had already explained at a press conference on May 25, 2012 that the number of recommendations for those two issues was a small fraction of all recommendations that Indonesia received in the UPR. Indeed, Indonesia received 21 recommendations or 0.11 percent for those two issues.
On the other hand, there was a report claiming that there has been a significant increase in the abuse of freedom of expression and freedom of religion in the last three years (Kompas, May 27, 2012). In this regard, there is a need to put in proportion the problem that national data may not necessarily reflect the international community’s priorities or attention. Of course, this does not mean that the low percentage of recommendations for those two issues will be used to legitimize omission or not to seriously address the problem.
The lesson that can be drawn from the above mentioned fallacies and misperceptions is that more dissemination of information on the UPR to the general public is needed so that such confusion does not happen in the future.
The writer is a participant of Sesparlu batch 46/Senior Leadership Training Course in the National Institute of Public Administration.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/06/16/fallacies-and-misperceptions-upr.html
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