Spain to be a part of The UN Human Rights Council
Spain a knight in shining armour for The UN Human Rights Council in 2018-2020 Secures top position with 180 ballots!
Protection and precedence of human rights are the fundamental protocols followed in the Spanish government policies. From the context of promoting the prerequisite of human rights across the globe, Spain has been elected for the second time to be the part of the 47-member Human Rights Council for next three years (2018-2020). This significant quill was added to the Spanish candidature after garnering 180 ballots in its favour amongst 193 members of the General Assembly. With 176 votes, on the other hand, the only exigent representative in this pursue was Australia.
The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ildefonso Castro has followed the live vote from the assembly. The electoral decision was brought into the picture by the UN General Assembly on Monday, October 16th 2017. After counting the secret ballot, Alfonso Dastis, the Foreign Minister of Spain opted social media to publicise this information. His tweet “Our principles and values endorse us” took minimal time to reach out the global audience.
Earlier in this process, a tough contest was expected between Paris and Spain, but later Paris has opted to put off its bid for a seat in July creating two vacancies in the group “Western Europe and others”, which led Spain and Australia further to garner a majority of electoral ballots in their favour. Prior garnering this three-year term on UN Human Rights Council, Spain was also an eminent part of this body from 2010 to 2013 debating on various human right issues. At present, Spain and Australia would replace Portugal and the Netherlands in protecting the violations of human rights.
Leveraging the protocol of human rights has never been so thriving before. Over the years, The Human Rights Council has been trolled by many critics at a global platform. The council was also accused of favoring some of the countries which were reported to infringe the ethical practice of human rights at different levels. Therefore, to limit such allegations, the stress was given to make commendations on how to deal with human rights violations with adequate measures. Today, the four core elements of Spain’s candidature include dignity, universality, cooperation and efficacy. During this three-year terms, Spain is expectant to contribute a fundamental significance to form part of the main United Nations human rights body.
Prior to the declaration of Spain’s candidature for the Human Rights Council 2018-2020, Sunday morning violence broke out in the city between Catalan separatists and the Spanish police. The occurrence of such instance was quite unexpected before the electoral event. While expressing his concern on this sudden occurrence, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human has called on the Spanish authorities to “ensure a rigorous, independent and impartial investigation into all acts of violence”.