This week the U.N. General Assembly is scheduled to approve a reform that should have been put into effect when first proposed 42 years ago.
We're referring to the suggestion, re-endorsed by an international conference on human rights last summer, that the United Nations create the post of High Commissioner for Human Rights.As it is now, the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission meets only once a year for six weeks to hear complaints and assign investigators to some states accused of abuses. But it is unable to alert the world quickly to major rights crises.
By putting a senior official in charge of monitoring human rights worldwide, the United Nations would at least give this important operation more visibility. But it wouldn't get much more clout.
Though the new commissioner would have the power to initiate probes without the approval of the country under investigation, his or her decisions would still need the approval of U.N. member countries. So be it. Assassins considered terrorists in some part of the world are deemed freedom fighters in other parts.
While some countries prefer to emphasize traditional rights such as freedom of speech and assembly, others think human rights should be broadened to include the right to food and work. Clearly, the high commissioner will have to be a diplomat as well as a prober and prosecutor.
But the new post can't be as effective as possible unless Secretary General Boutros-Ghali, who is lukewarm toward the reform, fills it not with some political hack but with an appointee of outstanding stature.
Nor can the Human Rights Commissioner be fully effective without more funds. The U.N. Center for Human Rights now gets only 0.7 percent of the United Nations' budget. That's not nearly enough at a time when the world is increasingly awash in human rights abuses. In just the first six months of this year, the United Nations has received more than 125,000 complaints about such violations. The figure is almost three times the number received for all of 1992.
Meanwhile, limited progress on this score is clearly better than continued drifting. A U.N. Human Rights Commissioner can perform a useful service by shining a light into some dark corners. Once abusive governments realize they can't hide their misdeeds from the rest of the world, there just might be fewer and fewer human rights violations.