Representatives of Taiwan’s Pingpu Aborigines have filed a complaint against President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration with the UN Human Rights Council and they might now be given an opportunity to speak at the associated UN meeting. Given the plethora of human rights-related activities in the UN, these developments deserve our attention.
The UN system consists of more than 40 organizations that all deal with human rights issues. The first type of organization are the human rights groups based on the UN Charter and they are divided into general human rights monitoring organizations and specialized human rights organizations.
The former includes the UN General Assembly, the UN Security Council, the UN Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice and the UN Secretariat. The latter includes the UN Human Rights Council, which replaced the Commission on Human Rights a few years ago, the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Center for Human Rights under the Secretariat.
This last group was established based on international human rights conventions, such as the UN Human Rights Committee, which was set up according to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that came into effect in 1976, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which was set up based on the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination that became effective in 1969, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Committee Against Torture; and the Committee on the Rights of the Child, as well as a group of three people who monitor the implementation of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
At the moment, development, security and human rights are seen as the three main pillars of the UN system, with the elevated status of human rights requiring more prestigious UN human rights organizations and mechanisms. The General Assembly thus passed Resolution 60/251 to create the Human Rights Council on March 15, 2006. As an affiliate to the General Assembly, its status, authority, participants and rules are all regulated. The resolution repeatedly reaffirms that the work of the Human Rights Council must follow the principles of universality, objectivity, transparency, fairness and genuine dialogue.
For more than 60 years, Taiwan has been occupied and ruled by a foreign regime. China has used oppression and deceit to constantly destroy the Taiwanese national identity and turned them into orphans in the international community. Because the UN still has not handled the issue of Taiwan’s legal status, in flux since the end of World War II, it remains unresolved to this day. The UN has also shown precious little concern for the human rights of the people who reside here. Hopefully, the complaint filed by the Pingpu Aborigines will be given fair and just treatment by the UN.
Chen Yi-nan is a member of the Northern Taiwan Society.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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