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 News from Around the Americas | May 2006 
Mexico Wins Election to New 47-Member UN Rights Council
 Wilbert Torre/El Universal
| | The sculpture of a twisted gun outside the United Nations headquarters in New York. Britain pledged to "play the fullest part" in the UN Human Rights Council after it was elected as a member of the fledgling Geneva-based body.(AFP/File/Don Emmert) |
United Nations - Mexico on Tuesday won a seat on the United Nations´ new, 47-member Human Rights Council, making it one of eight Latin American countries represented in the body.
Mexico was one of three Latin American nations to be given a three-year term on the council, the other five getting either a one-year or a two-year term.
Enrique Berruga, Mexico´s ambassador to the U.N., said he was "very pleased." Of the 191 nations represented on the U.N.´s General Council, 154 voted to include Mexico on the rights body.
He said Mexico refrained from trading votes with other nations to ensure a seat on the council.
"Mexico was the only one among the 191 member countries that decided not to exchange votes," Berruga said, adding this gave the nation "complete liberty" to vote for nations its representatives felt deserved to be on the council.
Regarding national issues, Berruga acknowledged that Mexico´s rights situation is still riddled with problems, such as the unsolved murders of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juárez and the murders of journalists who report on organized crime. But he said the nation no longer is trying to hide the abuses.
"These are areas in which we have to advance," he said. "With this new focus on cooperation, we are interested in taking advantage of these tools so that in Mexico things go forward as society wants them to."
Mexico, he said, was among the world´s most open countries in human rights.
"We have internal and external surveillance," he said. "We have accepted special envoys for especially urgent cases."
The council´s first task when it convenes next July will be to establish how the body will function. In this area, Berruga said Mexico will "concentrate in periodic and universal rights revisions between paired countries."
The previous human rights body, which was dissolved after its credibility came under fire, carried out rights inspections in countries because of reputation or complaints filed by other nations. But now, "all countries, regardless of their size or record, will be measured by the same standards," Berruga said.
Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Perú and Uruguay earned the other Latin American seats. |
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