2007 Castan Centre Intern

Bridi Rice, Australian Delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council (March - April 2007)

Report

Being an Australian Delegate at the United Nations Human Rights Council is as much about politics as it is about law and human rights.  It’s also about being a diplomat and I can’t say that I’ve worked out what that is yet.

Australia has a Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.  It was here that I spent two months with a team of Australian diplomats, representing Australia and the world’s interests on the newly formed Council.  Sounds cutting edge, and indeed it was.  But some days, it felt more as though we were on a knife’s edge.  Fighting for human rights in the field I understand: you want to stop a government from persecuting its citizens, you want to stop a conflict, you fight for the right of a child to attend school, for  a woman’s autonomy.  Fighting for human rights wearing a suit and drinking a cocktail in one of the world’s wealthiest cities is a different game.  I call it national interest ping pong.

The Council consists of member states, observer states and groups of interested parties such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. 

Most State delegations are made up of career diplomats with little human rights experience.  In one case, someone’s ‘really important niece who hadn’t been home in 15 years’ sat at the front of her country’s delegation. It was therefore a treat to find that Austria had an ex-peacekeeper in its delegation and damn near extraordinary that the Israeli delegation comprised a career human rights lawyer from the US. 

So what happens at the Council when member states include some of the world’s greatest human rights violators, and many countries vote according to their regional group line?  What happens when the only people who have ever seen a human rights violation are the maligned Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Internationals of this world?  What happens when you, as a 22 year old Australian who is firmly ‘misaligned’ with current Australian government human rights policy find yourself on the world’s human rights platform? You have an existential crisis romantically similar to that of Meursault in Albert Camus’ The Outsider.

Sitting in a room with delegates whose countries you have visited and worked in, listening to their vast self-appraisals, makes your blood curdle at their denial of reality.  Sitting in a room where delegates deny discrimination on the basis of gender and sexual preferences makes you think of gay and lesbian friends back home.  Sitting in a room as Amnesty International delivers 23,000 postcards addressed to your government requesting the release of David Hicks from Guantanamo Bay requires self control to put it mildly.

This existential crisis can make you ashamed, frustrated, angry and want to turn your back on your idealistic dreams of making the world a better place.  Or, it can be the best damn signal you can receive that you’re doing the right thing.

Questioning what your nation is about and what you are about, and openly considering the perspectives other than our own is vital.  It is vital for our world to overcome our defensive and polarised negotiating positions in Geneva.  It is vital that we start learning. And so, learn I did.

The Council is a political organ – and my jury is out on whether it can ever be an effective one.  One thing is certain though, it will be a near sighted world that will allow the Council to be hamstrung by the ping pong game it is currently playing.  It is my hope that the Council, with the suggestions made in the Universal Periodic Review mechanism will open itself to human rights expertise beyond what its diplomats can offer.  It is my hope that it engages in constructive and meaningful dialogue.  It is my greatest hope that, if the Council does not do these things, it comes under intense global scrutiny and criticism.

Working in Geneva was sensational.  There is no doubt.  As a 22 year old, to sit behind a little white sign whose black letters spell the French, ‘Australie’ and deliver a speech striking out against child prostitution and pornography and the use of child soldiers in Sri Lanka was what every young human rights advocate dreams of.  To spend evenings attending speeches and calls to action from some of the world’s greatest human rights workers is simultaneously heartbreaking and inspiring.

Undoubtedly Australia’s representatives to the UN are amongst the most professional and well regarded diplomats Geneva has to offer.  And, by and large, whether agreeing or disagreeing with Australia’s position on particular human rights concerns, our diplomats are a thoughtful, considered and far-sighted lot who work in an intensely frustrating negotiating context.  I return to my original musing about what a diplomat is, and I must say, I have no further conclusion.  But, if it includes being part of trying to build a better international mechanism to protect and promote human rights, then giving it a go for a while has been nothing but an honour and hopefully a taste of what will be more to come.

Profile

Bridi commenced her study at Monash University in 2003 and is in her fourth year of an Arts/Law degree.  In her arts degree, Bridi has a double major of English and Cultural Anthropology.  In the past four years she has developed a particular passion for international humanitarian law, international criminal law and various other areas of human rights and development.

She has been able to pursue these endeavours beyond her studies at Monash and outside of a purely legal interest in the field.  While Bridi has spent time in a number of developing regions, she has harboured a particular interest in Africa, having worked for a Ugandan NGO, Beroya, as a human rights case researcher, development consultant and legal educator.  She was fortunate during her time in Uganda, to use her research to partner with the Ugandan Law Fraternity and International Justice Mission as well as being a guest speaker for the East African World Bank retreat delegation.  Following this period in Uganda, Bridi returned to Australia to complete a research internship with the humanitarian law department of the Australian Red Cross in which she examined the situation of conflict in Northern Uganda that is before the International Criminal Court. 

Bridi has recently worked for the United Nations Khmer Rouge Taskforce in Cambodia where she has been an intern in the Office of the Co-Prosecutors of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (The Khmer Rouge Tribunal).

Underlying her pursuit of a career in the various fields of human rights and development, is Bridi’s commitment and passion to the fulfilment of human rights on a local, regional and international scale using a multidisciplinary approach.

http://www.bridirice.blogspot.com/

United Nations Human Rights Council