UN Watch urges Ban Ki-moon, Navi Pillay and Olivier de Schutter to speak out
In reaction, UN Watch today urged Ban Ki-moon and UN rights chief Navi Pillay to investigate why nothing was ever done to stop Jean Ziegler, the UNHRC’s former “Special Rapporteur on the right to food,” and to call on Ziegler to resign from his continuing council mandates on hunger. As a member of the UNHRC’s Advisory Committee, Ziegler continues to participate on right-to-food drafting groups, and has been mandated to work on related reports, background papers and studies for the council.
Earlier this year, Swiss TV confirmed UN Watch’s findings that Ziegler has been covering up his key role as founder of the “Muammar Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights.” A coalition of 45 NGOs led by UN Watch have called on Ziegler to resign. While many European and anti-Western journalists continue to treat Ziegler as a respected authority, the Salzburg Music Festival, citing UN Watch’s findings, disinvited Ziegler from delivering this summer’s keynote address.
UN Watch also called on Olivier De Schutter, the council’s current special rapporteur, who addressed the UN General Assembly today, to repudiate Ziegler’s politicized path.
Earlier this year, Mr. De Schutter, who has often expressed admiration for his predecessor, praised Syria’s Assad regime in a major report. His statements often blame the West and Israel.
In July, De Schutter launched a pre-emptive attack on Ban Ki-moon, protesting to the world’s media that the UN chief was about to issue a statement recognizing the legal and security justifications for Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
De Schutter has refused to answer questions submitted by UN Watch as to why he is now planning a country visit next May to Canada, of all places, instead of spotlighting food emergency countries like Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.
Columbia University law school hosts De Schutter this year as a visiting professor. Columbia also hosted a lecture last week by Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council expert who supports the 9/11 conspiracy theory.
In 2008, De Schutter was appointed a “Special Senior Advisor” to then UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockman, a former Sandinista politician who notoriously embraced Iran’s Ahmadinejad and other anti-Western tyrants. Other appointees included Falk; Ramsey Clark, the defender of Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and Rwandan torturers; and Noam Chomsky, the guru of anti-Americanism. Brockman today sits on the UNHRC Advisory Committee, together with Jean Ziegler. We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried.
