E-Kantipur

OHCHR’s credibility...has not resulted from meek compromises, not from watering down reports or avoiding sensitive issues. On the contrary, its strength has come from a courageous and proactive independence...The only way to sustain credibility and legitimacy in Nepal is to keep doing that job, firmly and honestly and without compromise.” 

(Evaluation of the work of OHCHR in Nepal, Nov. 12, 2010, Liam Mahony, Roger Nash, and Indu Tuladhar) In Oct. 2010, the human rights community had its expressed concern that the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNHCHR) was failing to support its own field office in Nepal (OHCHR-N). The regional rights bodies were particularly concerned over its decision to agree to close OHCHR-N field offices outside Kathmandu. We had warned that the closure endangered the institution’s effectiveness and would further erode its credibility.

Most observers believed that the UNHCHR had, at its generous best, conceded too easily and without sufficient regard for the consequences, not least because OHCHR’s own reporting suggested a deteriorating human rights environment.

The rights bodies were also concerned about the UNHCHR’s prolonged inaction in addressing OHCHR-N’s strategic and managerial failings; failings that were in marked contrast to its earlier effectiveness and impact. Many of us had recommended that if OHCHR-N was to have a future, the UNHCHR must demonstrate public commitment to its field office and, as a priority, expedite the appointment of new leadership.

Our concerns are not new, nor particularly original. In 2008, the EU commissioned an evaluation of OHCHR-N’s work. It warned of a failing organisation along the lines described by ACHR and other rights bodies.  Most recently, on Nov. 16, 2010, a donor evaluation of OHCHR-N, carried out by respected independent human rights experts, once again echoed our concerns regarding both performance, the implications of the withdrawal of field offices, and the imperative on new leadership to turn things around. It warned very clearly that a further leadership gap was ‘something OHCHR cannot afford to repeat’.

The UNHCHR’s response to these urgent expressions of concern raises further concerns. The recruitment process for a new Country Head has been quietly suspended.  This has been followed by the suspension of the appointment process for a Deputy Head of Office, meaning that whoever is in charge must focus not just on important rights issues but will be equally diverted by the time-consuming responsibilities of internal management. On Jan. 10, the former Deputy Head took over as what has been obliquely described in the press release as ‘the Head’. The phrase ‘Country Representative’ is oddly absent.  What status the UNHCHR has granted the Head remains unclear.

In a media release on Jan. 20, in a move that has to have been approved by OHCHR Headquarters, OHCHR-N announced that: “OHCHR’s principal focus is to work closely with the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers in supporting the three-year National Human Rights Action Plan (NHRAP).”

This represents a major policy shift and deserves examination. We have real concerns about the political wisdom of the UN associating itself so unconditionally with the launch of a three-year plan designed by a caretaker government of dubious constitutional legitimacy, headed by an unelected prime minister, dominated by the military and with a clearly time-limited expiry date.  

From a substantive point of view, the policy runs counter to the recommendations of OHCHR-N’s donor evaluation that underlined that such initiatives should not be a priority for OHCHR-N on the basis that: “Unfortunately, the responsible state organs in Nepal lack sufficient political will to resist pervasive patronage networks.”  In the current context, where both the government and the Maoists have actively supported measures that buttress impunity, the UN approach to the government on human rights issues and projects should be both cautious and conditional.

In the early 2000s, UNDP attempted to make a NHRAP the ‘principal focus’ of human rights activities in Nepal.

The NHRAP became the focus of a struggle in both the national and international community over how to address Nepal’s deteriorating human rights environment. The initiative failed. And it is broadly accepted that this was because responsible state organs in Nepal lack(ed) sufficient political will to resist pervasive patronage networks. External evaluation in 2004 warned of the NHRAP’s potential to be used by the government as ‘an alibi for further violation’.

The new strategy that emerged sought to establish an international presence of human rights monitors; what was eventually to become OHCHR-N. In short, OHCHR-N’s establishment was based on an explicit rejection of what now has been announced as the OHCHR-N’s ‘principal focus’ and other cosmetic gestures of like ilk.

What failed then, will fail now. The earlier NHRAP failed at a time of greater respect for human rights, stronger institutions and greater checks and balances than are currently available in Nepal. Just as its predecessor became the royal regimes’ principal defence for its appalling human rights record, it seems likely that the NHRAP will be used by the government to defend itself when it faces the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) over the next few days.

Whatever the content of this new NHRAP (and the only NHRAP available on OHCHR’s website is the rejected 2004 version) the reality is that NHRAP, in the absence of political will to resist pervasive patronage networks, will only function as a tool to cover up government failure; effectively an alibi for further violation.

OHCHR-N support for the NHRAP is at best wrong-headed, and indicative of institutional crisis. If radical change is not announced, the regional rights bodies and many others in civil society will have to advocate for its closure.  It is equally unclear why donors should support what increasingly looks like some expensive folly.

The UPR discussions would appear an appropriate place to take stock. It is time for a public debate in Nepal on how to tackle Nepal’s deteriorating human rights environment. It is a debate that should start within Nepal and Nepal’s donors should support this. But equally it also seems an appropriate time for Nepal’s main human rights donors, as a group, to examine their priorities and strategies. They too need to urgently examine what has been achieved and what has not. They need to look for ways to forge a coordinated response to an uncertain future. There are five months until the renewal of OHCHR-N’s mandate.

Chakma is director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights, New Delhi

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