A former (and first female) president of Ireland, Robinson is only the second person to hold her job. Her predecessor was a dud–“a total disaster,” in the words of Joanna Weschler, U.N. representative for Human Rights Watch. Jose Ayala Lasso, who left to become Ecuador’s foreign minister in 1997, was a gentle voice in an arena where, as Weschler put it, “quiet diplomacy is very often counterproductive.”
Robinson, a human-rights lawyer by training, brought the same style that defined her high-profile presidency (during which she would march off to such spots as Somalia and Rwanda to focus attention on human-rights issues). As high commissioner, she continued to trot around the globe and to speak out for “victims of violations.” And she strove, in the jargon of the bureaucracy, “to mainstream human rights throughout the whole U.N. system.” She also endeavored to correct a perceived imbalance in how human-rights standards were applied. So she criticized such countries as Australia, the United States and Israel, along with the usual Third World suspects. And that approach got her into trouble–most embarrassingly, during the U.N. World Conference Against Racism.
That conference, held a year ago in Durban, South Africa, was to be a glorious coming together, an opportunity for countries to collectively confront the worldwide legacy of discrimination. Instead, it was a mess. Its message of harmony was overshadowed by Arab states determined to equate the Holocaust with Israel’s current treatment of Palestinians. The United States boycotted the affair, as did Israel. And Robinson got some withering reviews. “Instead of condemning the attempt to usurp the conference, she legitimized it,” said U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos. Earlier this year, when the United Nations was putting together a team to investigate Israel’s military action in Jenin, Israel made it clear Robinson was not welcome.
Robinson rejects the notion that she has been anything other than balanced. “Yet I know that that’s not how it’s perceived, neither by Israel, nor by the United States.” Certainly U.S. officials will shed no tears at her departure, especially in light of her recent criticism of America for violating the rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
For all the discomfort Robinson causes, she has picked up some loyal friends–both among developing nations and many nonprofits, or NGOs. Through Robinson, “we gained a sense of empowerment,” says Gay McDougall, head of the Washington-based International Human Rights Law Group. Robinson “would back us up,” says McDougall. Many NGO types wonder whether her replacement will likewise adopt their issues as his own.
Sergio Viera de Mello, a Brazilian native and career U.N. official, bristles at the suggestion he may not be up to the job. He has done duty in Kosovo and Cyprus. His last assignment, as U.N. transitional administrator in East Timor, was to create a nation out of chaos; and his whole career, he argues, has been in the service of human rights. “I started in East Pakistan, which while I was there became Bangladesh, after a bloody war. From there I went to southern Sudan at the end of the first civil war… What have I seen in my life except human-rights violations?… I have experienced them. They have caused me trauma, personal suffering, shame… If the argument is, ‘Sergio doesn’t know the conventions [legal agreements] by heart, Sergio doesn’t know the function of the human-rights-treaty bodies’… Absolutely true, I don’t; but I will learn. I think those who know me and who have seen me function also know that I’m not afraid.”
Viera de Mello is a charming man; and he is, by all accounts, a smooth and formidable operator. In the post 9-11 world, that may be what the position requires. The threat of terrorism can make human rights seem a lot like luxuries. And it may take a smooth operator to effectively make the case that they are not (and to get the United Nations to increase the funds–now only 1.7 percent of its regular budget–devoted to protecting them). But being the world’s human-rights conscience also requires something else. It occasionally means embarrassing those friends whose displeasure might cost you your job. That demands the brand of courage that Robinson has in spades. Viera de Mello inevitably will be called upon to demonstrate that he has it as well.
