The capital of Belarus, Minsk, Victory Square. UN Special Rapporteur: Belarus’s engagement with UN human rights bodies is at its lowest point in history Human Rights
Belarus’s engagement with the UN on human rights issues has reached a “historical low,” an independent UN expert said.
“I have been responsible for this mandate for six years now. During this time, the human rights situation in Belarus has deteriorated sharply. And the level of Belarus’s interaction with the UN human rights system has also decreased,” said Anaïs Marin. In her latest report to the UN General Assembly, she reported that the country is not implementing the recommendations of UN human rights bodies and mechanisms.
According to Marin, who holds the post of Special Rapporteur on human rights in Belarus, these recommendations concern, in particular, the establishment of a national human rights institution, the abolition of the death penalty, the separation of powers, guarantees of a fair trial, an end to arbitrary arrests, torture and gender-based violence, ensuring the rights to freedom of speech, peaceful assembly and association. Some of the proposals date back to the 1990s.
Marin’s report also shows how, over the past four years, Belarus has taken an openly dismissive stance toward international institutions that have pointed to repressions of unprecedented scale and intensity that began during the country’s last presidential elections in 2020.
Belarus has not only reduced its engagement with UN human rights bodies, but has also denounced several human rights treaties that it has failed to comply with, including the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Despite the fact that the Belarusian government makes statements about cooperating with UN human rights mechanisms, this cooperation, according to Marin, appears selective and in bad faith. Thus, in response to the last Universal Periodic Review in 2020, the Belarusian authorities stated that the recommendations made therein had already been implemented.
The report also describes how Belarus has largely ignored recommendations made over the past 20 years by the International Labour Organization (ILO).
The Special Rapporteur stressed that her mandate remains critical to the protection of human rights in Belarus – rights that have been denied for decades.