Published: June 13, 2007
Canadian Parliamentarian Rejected Offer to Join Tutu's UN Mission to Gaza
Human Rights Advocate and former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler: "Mandate Violated Fundamental Justice"
In a powerful speech today before the UN Human Rights Council that followed an address by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Canadian parliamentarian and former justice minister Irwin Cotler made public for the first time that he had rejected an offer to join Tutu in his UN investigative mission to Gaza. The internationally-acclaimed human rights activist and former counsel to dissidents Nelson Mandela and Andrei Sakharov told the plenary that Council President Luis de Alba had invited him in November 2006 to join Tutu in a Council inquiry into Israel's "wilful killing of civilians" in Beit Hanoun, but turned it down because the mandate violated "the fundamental principles of due process" by ignoring Palestinian rocket attacks. Professor Cotler spoke in his capacity as a board member of UN Watch, the Geneva-based human rights NGO.
Cotler said the Council, now meeting to wrap up a year's worth of reform negotiations, is about to "institutionalize the condemnation of Israel as a standing item on the agenda-the permanent singling-out of Israel for differential and discriminatory treatment, a permanent Alice-in-Wonderland situation." The tragedy, he said, was that "this is taking place under the protective cover of the UN, undermining thereby the cause of the UN, international law and human rights."
All of the Council's condemnations this year have been targeted against Israel, to the exclusion of the UN's other 191 member states. Sudan's actions in Darfur were debated but no censure followed.
For more on the perils of this week's proposals, click here.
Source: UN Watch
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