On Friday, as Saudi authorities braced themselves for the women's driving protest – and threatened to arrest any woman who dared to take to the streets behind the wheel of a car – there was better news from Geneva where the UN Human Rights Council has been reviewing the kingdom's performance.

The official Saudi news agency reported:

"Following the session held today, the President of the Saudi Human Rights Commission Dr Bandar bin Mohammed al-Aiban expressed pleasure at the positive reactions towards the Kingdom, by the states which discussed the report, pointing that 90 member states out of a total of 102 states have hailed the Saudi exerted efforts in the field of spreading, protecting and enhancing the human rights."

A similar report in the Jeddah-based Arab News said:

"Expressing his happiness of such a worldwide positive feedback, he [Aiban] said Saudi Arabia would continue to enforce and protect human rights at all levels while 'maintaining its identity, culture, national interests, welfare of its citizens'."

Given that by any objective standards the kingdom has an appalling human rights record, this might be considered a triumph for Saudi diplomacy and spin.

It is true that amongst the criticisms a lot of positive things were said, though "hailed" is probably putting it too strongly – "commend" seems to have been the favoured word.

Whether these commendations have any value is another matter. Since the Human Rights Council was set up in 2006, reciprocal arrangements seem to have developed where countries with a poor record on rights band together to congratulate each other – thus blunting the impact of their critics.

The Saudis also pulled a smart PR trick by fielding several fully-veiled women among the 22-member delegation to make the kingdom's case in Geneva (see video below). 
  

 
Despite all that, Saudi Arabia was presented with 225 recommendations for action, some of which pose a fundamental challenge to its social and political system. The main ones are:

• To put an end to all forms of discrimination against women in legislation and in practice and to allow women to participate fully and equally in society;

• To increase national awareness campaigns on equality between men and women and women’s rights in general; To abolish the male guardianship system; to lift reservations to the CEDAW [Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women];

• To take all necessary measures to combat domestic violence and ensure victims had access to mechanisms of protection and redress;

• To enact a law prohibiting all child, early and forced marriages, and establish the minimum legal age of marriage at 18 years;

• Adopt laws to protect freedoms of association, expression, peaceful assembly and religion;

• To take additional measures to address issues of discrimination and exploitation against migrant workers; to protect all workers from abuse by prosecuting perpetrators of labour abuses, adopting laws to protect victims, and better apprising foreign workers of their legal rights and remedies;

• To impose a moratorium on the death penalty with a view to its eventual abolition;

• To ensure that capital punishment was not imposed for offences committed by persons under 18 years of age; to totally abolish corporal punishment;

• To allow for the registration of NGOs active in the area of human rights and to foster an environment to allow civil society to work unhindered and adopt a law which should take into account the views of civil society;

• To ensure all domestic legislation was in line with international standards;

• To extend a standing invitation to the Special Procedures and respond positively to those who have requested to visit the country;

• Ratification of human rights instruments: the Rome Statute of the ICC, the ICCPR, the ICESCR, the OCAT, the OP to CEDAW, the third OP to the CRC, and the Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers.

Saudi Arabia has until March next year to respond to the recommendations. Aiban told the council they would all be duly considered – though he added the usual get-out that this would be "in the light of the Islamic sharia".

It appears that Saudi Arabia also tried to "edit" some of the recommendations when the final report (still to be published) was drafted. Britain, Germany, the United States, France and Estonia 
formally objected to this. 

The British representative, Ian Duddy, said that in line with agreed practice recommendations made during the review should be accurately reflected in the final report.

"We are disappointed that some recommendations have been changed in this report and that in some cases an important part of the original recommendation has been removed," he said, adding that the report should be an accurate reflection of the council's discussion and that "states under review should not engage in a direct negotiation with states over the recommendations made".

The exact nature of this interference is not clear from the objectors' public statements. Anyone who can shed more light on this please post a comment below or send me an email.

     
Posted by Brian Whitaker
Monday, 28 October 2013