Philippines votes with China on human rights resolution in UN

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has voted in favor of a China-led resolution in the United Nations, which the United States described as an instrument that weakens respect for human rights.

 The resolution calls for upholding multilateralism and working together to promote “mutually beneficial cooperation,” as it suggested that governments could agree on “win-win” exceptions to human rights concerns.

Adopted by a vote of 28 in favor, one against and 17 abstentions, the UN Human Rights Council on Friday adopted the resolution titled “Promoting Mutually Beneficial Cooperation in the Field of Human Rights.”

The 28 countries that voted in favor were the Philippines, Angola, Brazil, Burundi, Chile, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Mongolia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Togo, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

The US voted against while Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Croatia, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Peru, Republic of Korea, Rwanda, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom abstained.

Yu Jianhua, head of the Chinese Mission to the UN headquarters at Geneva, introduced the resolution to the Council, saying that to achieve the goal of universal human rights, all countries need to firmly establish the concept of win-win cooperation.

“All peoples lived on the same Earth and faced common challenges. China had co-sponsored this resolution for mutually beneficial cooperation in promoting and protecting human rights,” China said.

It added that it “strongly believed that the Human Rights Council should be guided by the principles of universality, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity for greater cooperation, capacity building and technical assistance, in order to build a new type of international relations, which reflected the times.”

Beijing explained that China’s contributions and that of other countries to global human rights governance were in this direction.

It thanked all parties who had demonstrated a cooperative attitude after saying that Beijing would regret if any country would oppose it just because it was put forth by China.

“China hoped countries would refrain from the ‘zero-sum’ game and hoped that all member states would participate in consensus,” it said.

Those who welcomed the adoption of the resolution said China has always advocated that human rights be protected through cooperation and communication rather than criticism and accusation.

‘No’ vote

In explaining its “No” vote, the US said: “It was clear that China was attempting through this resolution to weaken the United Nations human rights system and the norms underpinning it.”

“The ‘feel good’ language about ‘mutually beneficial cooperation’ was intended to benefit autocratic states at the expense of people whose human rights and fundamental freedoms all were obligated, as states, to respect. For these reasons, the US was calling for a vote and would vote against this resolution, and encouraged all other countries not to support this resolution,” the US said in a statement.

In a statement on the key outcomes of US priorities at the UN Human Rights Council’s 37th Session in Geneva, it explained that the resolution “sought to weaken international human rights frameworks by demanding that governments be ‘respected’ (i.e. not have their human rights records criticized) and suggesting that governments could agree on ‘win-win’ exceptions to human rights concerns.”