Slovenia Gets Seat on UN Human Rights Council
The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly voted on Thursday in favour of Slovenia's bid for a seat on the UN Human Security Council. Slovenia got 167 votes of the necessary 97 in its second attempt to secure a seat on the body.
The country was running alongside Belarus and Bosnia-Herzegovina for one of the two seats that will be vacated by Poland and the Czech Republic. It was Bosnia that secured enough votes in round two of voting to win a three-year term at the council that replaced the discredited UN Human Rights Commission.
Slovenian Ambassador to the UN Sanja Stiglic pointed out that the country expected the outcome, even though voting was always unpredictable. "It was shown that Slovenia enjoys a good reputation in the international community because of its high level of human rights protection," she said.
Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel meanwhile wrote Slovenia's election confirmed the wide support the country enjoys in the UN. "I am pleased that this eliminated all doubts about the credibility and ability of Slovenia in the area of human rights and possible doubts on the competence of Slovenian diplomacy," Rupel said.
"This is a new achievement of our country in the international arena and a confirmation of the activities and qualities of the Slovenian diplomats," Rupel added in a press release, published by the Foreign Ministry.
He said that the Human Rights Council was not a simple institution. It includes many different countries with different interests he said and added that "we want the interpretation of human rights as interpreted by us and the European Union, to be as efficient as possible".
Rupel believes that Slovenia faces a responsible task as the issue of human rights is one of the most interesting and important in the world.
Slovenia ran for the seat because human rights are a priority of its foreign policy. Moreover the position will be useful for the country's spell at the helm of the EU in the first half of 2008.
Amnesty International Slovenia (AIS), a human rights watchdog, said that Slovenia had a huge black spot on its record of human rights protection, referring to the erased, some 18,000 nationals of former Yugoslav republics who were unlawfully removed from the register of permanent residents in February 1992.
This prompted the AIS to say that the current activities of the Slovenian authorities do not follow the country's commitments given before the candidacy.
The organisation called on the Slovenian authorities to immediately resolve the issue and hope that the seat in the council would give the country impetus to act now.
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