Aakar Patel | India, as a UNSC aspirant, should not ignore UN on human rights

As the world’s largest nation and a democracy, we are entitled to having our voice heard in the global body.

In 2021, the then UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, said “although it is the primary responsibility of the UN Human Rights Council, promoting and protecting human rights is one of the best ways for the UN Security Council to achieve its mandate of maintaining international peace and security”. With that in mind, let’s take a look at India’s engagement with the UN human rights system in the past few years. The fact is that India hasn’t been a strong leader at the UNHRC, willing to take difficult and principled stands with consistent application of human rights values; nor has it engaged particularly constructively with UNHRC mechanisms. India has been a member of the UN Human Rights Council for 16 of the council’s 18 years — most recently from 2019 to 2024. Resolution 60/251 that created the UNHRC states “members elected to the council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights, shall fully cooperate with the council, and be reviewed under the universal periodic review mechanism during their term of membership”. India has been the subject of 25 critical statements from UN human rights experts and UHCHR since 2019 — during its last two terms of membership — expressing concerns about its domestic human rights issues and lack of compliance with its international human rights obligations.

Between January 24, 2011 and September 24, 2024, the Indian government received over 200 communications from UN Special Procedures, a collection of independent experts created by the HRC and mandated to monitor and report on human rights across the globe. The Indian government only responded to less than a third of the communications it received. After 2014, India has facilitated the completion of only two visits by a UN special procedure mandate to the country. It currently has 19 pending visit requests. Some have gone unanswered since 1999 (for example, from the Special Rapporteur on Torture). In its last Universal Periodic Review, a mechanism by which every state’s human rights record is examined and recommendations for improvements made, 21 countries urged India to improve its protection of freedom of religion and rights of religious minorities, with several raising concerns over increasing violence and hate speech and the government’s adoption of discriminatory policies such as “anti-conversion” laws. In addition, 19 countries said India should ratify the UN Convention against Torture, a treaty we signed in 1997 but never ratified. India said in both the 2012 and 2017 UPR cycles that it remained committed to ratifying the treaty. However, it hasn’t taken steps to fulfil its commitment even as torture and other ill-treatment continue to be used routinely by the police and other security forces to gather information or coerce “confessions”. India is party to only six of the nine core human rights treaties. India’s reports under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child are also overdue. India has been the subject of two reports, in 2018 and 2019, from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the human rights situation in Kashmir. Both reports called on the Indian authorities to respect international human rights obligations in the region, repeal or amend repressive laws such as the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act and the Jammu & Kashmir Public Safety Act, end restrictions on journalists and investigate all blanket bans or restrictions. Instead of engaging with the OHCHR, India called the reports “false, with a motivated narrative”, and accused the human rights body of “legitimising terrorism”.

India has consistently been included in the UN Secretary-General’s report on reprisals, which sets out cases of alleged reprisals — against individuals and organisations — for cooperation with the UN in the field of human rights. In the 2020 report, the Secretary-General concluded that “ongoing intimidation and reprisals have reportedly deterred some civil society representatives from cooperating with the United Nations for fear of further retribution” in the country. So why is credible engagement with UNHRC critical in the context of India’s UNSC bid? Discussions about reforming the UNSC should not be done in isolation of candidates’ performance and behaviour at other UN bodies, most importantly human rights ones. Membership of any of the UN organs should be used to shine a spotlight on, and protect human rights, not to shield members or their allies from scrutiny of their human rights record. This should be the case for all nations and the fact that others are as bad or worse on this issue should not matter. It is abundantly clear that India is falling short of its domestic and international human rights obligations and its commitments as a member and in its interactions with different UN bodies and mechanisms. The discussion on reform of the Security Council may not end soon, but if India is serious about its intention to be a UNSC permanent member, it must demonstrate that it can engage responsibly with UN human rights entities, including UNHRC. It must comply with UNHRC’s membership criteria in a consistent and principled manner. It must commit to upholding the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights to fully cooperate with the UN human rights mechanisms. We harm our chances when we choose deliberately to not do the right thing.