By Jerome A. Cohen
This is an excellent essay by Professor Yanghee Lee, former UN special rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar and former chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, on the dire situation in Hong Kong and the human rights violations that the new National Security Law may bring. It is wonderful to hear from a Korean expert on Hong Kong, especially one who has had such important relevant experience and has come up with a constructive proposal for trying to cope with the increasingly explosive situation.
In the article, Professor Lee suggests that the United Nations could create either a special rapporteur or special envoy for human rights in Hong Kong. It would be excellent if the UN were to make some direct effort to improve the situation. The PRC claims that Hong Kong’s unrest is a matter of national security. However, it is also obviously a matter of international security, although the PRC vigorously resists this truth. Unfortunately, a PRC veto would frustrate any effort to invoke the concern of the UN Security Council. Eventually, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention will confirm the PRC’s anticipated violations of the human rights of people victimized under the forthcoming NSL. But that plainly will be too little and too late, as it so often has been. What to do now?
Although a special rapporteur for HK would be splendid, Professor Lee, herself a former special rapporteur, maintains that this appointment would have to be approved by the UN Human Rights Council and may run into obstacles. Also, she does not explicitly discuss the politics of approval at a time when the US has withdrawn from the HRC, and the PRC wields prominent influence over the Council. Certainly, an attempt should be made to obtain HRC approval, if only to embarrass the PRC and many of the other oppressive governments that take part in the HRC.
The special envoy possibility is one that is rarely discussed outside expert circles and, although perhaps less immediately effective in informing public opinion, is surely worth trying. Here, Professor Lee points out, approval must come from the UN Secretary General. Of course, the PRC has a good deal of influence in the Secretary General’s Office, but so too does the US as well as the other liberal democracies. It would be good to hear the appraisal of political observers about the current constellation of pressures in that office. It is sobering for outsiders to note the ongoing international struggle for influence over the much-criticized WHO Secretary General, who is about to deliver a commencement speech at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Is there no possibility that the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights can be of assistance? Under some administrators it has played an important and encouraging role.
The UN is an area where an immediate Western response might be made without awaiting the public appearance of the draft National Security Law, if a draft is actually going to appear before the NSL is foisted upon HK’s fearful and divided population and the many foreigners who interact with it.