Spain has presented this Tuesday at the Cervantes Institute in New York its candidacy to join the United Nations Human Rights Council for the period 2025-2027, a seat it already occupied between 2011-2013 and 2018-2020. The third candidacy to the Council has been formally presented by Ambassador Héctor Gómez, permanent representative of Spain to the United Nations, before representatives and delegates of the diplomatic corps accredited to the UN.
Although the Human Rights Council is based in Geneva, the renewal of its members depends on the General Assembly of the organisation, which in October will vote in plenary session on the renewal of three seats for Europe, for which three candidates have been presented, so its election is unquestionable. Spain hopes to have broad support among the 193 member countries of the UN for its commitment to human rights, the protection and promotion of which constitutes a priority axis of foreign policy, especially in areas such as the fight for equality between men and women, the fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and the fight against the death penalty, in force in the country that hosts the UN headquarters.
The Human Rights Council is made up of 47 members who submit a report to the General Assembly on the state of rights in the world every year. In addition, every spring they hold a “universal periodic evaluation” of all member countries, including Spain, which has been denounced on a few occasions for violating fundamental rights. The last time was in 2022, when it considered that the political rights of former members of the Government and Parliament of Catalonia had been violated by suspending them from their public duties, before there was a conviction, following the independence referendum in 2017.
The record of rapes committed by countries such as China, Cuba, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia has not prevented them from occupying a seat on the Council in the past, with no more problems than a passing media buzz and indignant denunciations by activists. Although it is not directly related to the Council, the latest example of this possibilist contradiction that the organisation sometimes falls into has been the UN’s call for a conference on the future of Afghanistan in which women have not participated due to alleged pressure from the Taliban.
Although the Human Rights Council lacks the executive and sanctioning power of the Security Council, it is the moral thermometer of the international community. In 2022, it expelled Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, an extreme measure that only had one precedent, the suspension of Libya eleven years earlier. Spain’s position in the Gaza war, with the official recognition of Palestine, has earned it the sympathy of the group of Arab countries, very active in initiatives for a peaceful solution that will end the war. Spain’s contribution to the recognition of the right to drinking water and sanitation, one of the major priorities of foreign policy and development cooperation, is also on Spain’s credit side.
Spain’s official candidacy for its third membership of the Geneva Council has been captured in twelve watercolours by the New York-based Spanish artist Patricia Bolaños, which reproduce recognisable creations by Velázquez, Sorolla, Goya, Miró, Picasso, Dalí, Barceló, María Blanchard, Eduardo Chillida, Juan Genovés and Juan Gris. Each watercolour is accompanied by a statement of one of the fundamental rights. The dozen watercolours commissioned by the Spanish mission to the UN will make up a folder that will later be distributed among the organisation’s member states. The artist has completed the series with a drawing of the Camino de Santiago, recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
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