THE government has revived the initiative to establish a National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR). A bill has already been introduced in the National Assembly.

The bill needs to be seriously debated in parliament and outside and the flaws in it removed. Otherwise, the objective of the “protection and promotion of human rights” will not be realised.

The bill on the subject drafted a couple of years ago having lapsed without discussion, lawmakers now have two bills before them. The other bill was introduced by a private member (Kashmala Tariq). Although the latter draft is on some points better than the official one, we will focus on the official bill. The practice of governments preferring their own handiwork to private members’ labour is quite well-entrenched, especially in Pakistan.

In the international human rights system the standards for national human rights institutions (NHRIs) have been laid down in the Paris Principles of 1992 which are being refined and overseen by the International Coordination Council. These principles provide the touchstone for testing the effectiveness of the proposed NCHR. Surely, the human rights watchdog in the state sector should be a genuine coin and not a spurious one.

The Paris Principles envisage a national institution for the promotion and protection of human rights that should have a broad mandate and should be totally independent of the government. The mandate proposed for the NCHR is no doubt as broad as stipulated in the Paris Principles. It will inquire into complaints of human rights violations, visit jails and suggest improvement in living conditions there, recommend changes in laws that curtail human rights, recommend ratification and implementation of international human rights instruments, promote teaching of and research in human rights and spread human rights literacy. All this is in accord with the Paris Principle (A).

However, the provision that the NCHR will encourage and facilitate NGOs only if they comply with instructions issued by the federal government is not in harmony with any standard applicable to NHRIs. Some eyebrows will be raised at the provision which says that the NCHR will “contribute to the reports which Pakistan is required to submit to the United Nations bodies and committees pursuant to its treaty obligations, and where necessary, may express an opinion on the subject, with due respect for their independence”.

True, this provision is found in Paris Principles (A-d) but it assumes an independent institution, something that cannot be taken for granted in a country like Pakistan. Imperfect governments across the globe tend to conceive human rights watchdogs as their apologists. In the present case suspicions of mala fide intent are aroused when one notices that the NCHR “shall also serve as a driving force for negating the propaganda of human rights violations in Pakistan”. (Statement of objectives and reasons.)

The success of the proposed NCHR will depend on its independence of the government. The bill does have a section titled, ‘Independence of the commission’ which bars members from acting on the basis of group affiliation, bias or prejudice, or where a clash of interest is involved. This is part of the code of conduct for all state functionaries in Pakistan that is zealously violated. Such restrictions mean nothing if the NCHR members do not enjoy high enough status in administration and society and the hiring and firing of its members is completely in the hands of the executive as provided for in the bill under consideration.

The proposed composition of the NCHR defies logic and good sense. The commission shall consist of a chairperson (a retired judge of a high court or the Supreme Court) and 10 members — one member from the minorities and one woman from each of the four provinces, one member from Islamabad and the secretary, human rights division (now ministry). Except for the last two members, all others should have “knowledge and background of human rights”. The only other condition relates to age — no one should be less than 30 or more than 70. This is unsatisfactory for more than one reason.

First, a retired high court judge will not make an effective chairperson. The NCHR will have the right to “intervene in any proceeding … pending before a court with the approval of such court”. Since the word ‘court’ is not defined one assumes that it includes the Supreme Court, all high courts and the Sharia court too. A retired high court judge may have problems in intervening in matters before these courts.

It is perhaps for this reason that in India the five-member HR commission must be headed by a retired chief justice of the Supreme Court and must include a sitting/retired judge of the Supreme Court and a sitting/retired chief justice of a high court. (One is not enamoured of the Indian law but reference to it is in order because both the bills in the National Assembly are its modified versions.) Besides, many are wary of putting all eggs in the judiciary’s tattered basket.

Secondly, the chairperson and members of the NCHR will be appointed by the president on the advice of the prime minister. This is a way to downgrade the commission on human rights to the status of the administration’s auxiliary office. In several countries selection of NHRI members is done through a broad consultative process. In India the appointments are made by the president on the recommendations of a committee comprising the prime minister (chair), the Lok Sabha speaker, home minister, leaders of opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, and the Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson.

Similarly, the president, on the prime minister’s advice, will be able to remove the NCHR chairperson or any member on the grounds of misconduct, insolvency, infirmity of mind or body, imprisonment for moral turpitude. This provision is incompatible with the commission’s autonomy.

Thirdly, the proposed composition of the NCHR does not accord with the emphasis in the Paris Principles on “the pluralist representation of the social forces (of civil society) involved in the protection and promotion of human rights”. The Principles specifically refer to NGOs, associations of lawyers, doctors and journalists, trade unions and universities and allows representation to government departments only in an advisory capacity. The proposed composition of the NCHR will not guarantee its credibility and acceptability.

It is also not clear whether the NCHR will be financially autonomous. A provision for the creation of a fund in which donations will be deposited is there but there is no mention as to how grants from the state will be made. A commission that depends on the goodwill of the finance ministry will be a non-starter.

There are many other aspects of the bill that cannot be taken up for want of space, but one must notice that the authors of the official bill betray themselves completely when they have the audacity to write: “For furthering the functions of the National Commission for Human Rights the Federal Government may, as and when it considers necessary, issue directives to the Commission on matters of policy; and such directives shall be binding on the Commission.”

A more offensive way of subverting the idea of a commission on human rights in the public sector could not have been imagined.

IT took the UN 13 days to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, which Israel continues to defy. Israeli air strikes and ground assaults have spread death and destruction and turned the narrow strip into a testing ground for its “extremely nasty” new weapons.

Israel claims that since its war aims have not been met, the operations will continue, irrespective of what the world body may demand. Apparently the rules of the game do not apply to Israel, nor can it be held accountable for its transgressions, for Israel is a law unto itself and has been exercising a free hand when it comes to the Palestinians.

In fact, ever since Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election in January 2006, Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza, with US and EU support. Fuel, electricity and even the movement of people has been slowly choked off, leading to health and economic hardships.

The reason advanced for the current operations is that Hamas rockets threatened security of Israel’s citizens. But the story is a trifle complicated. In reality, with Israel going to the polls, major politicians are vying for the top job and are engaged in efforts to burnish their less than admirable records. Caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, having already been indicted on corruption charges, fears being convicted. Nor have the Israelis forgiven him his disastrous adventure against Hezbollah in Lebanon. He therefore seeks to redeem himself in Gaza.

His likely successor as head of the Kadima Party and current foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, too was tainted by the brush of the 2006 fiasco in Lebanon. She is also trying to live down her ‘mistake’ of making a distinction between legitimate Palestinian freedom fighters and terrorists. Livni is now determined to demonstrate that she can be as tough as the boys.

Finally, Defence Minister and Labour Party chief Ehud Barak has been ruing the day he gave the impression of agreeing to Jerusalem’s partition, which led to accusations of being a ‘dove’, an unforgivable sin in Israel. And, of course, all three are trying to prove that they can be tougher and more inflexible than Likud’s disgraced but potent Binyamin Netanyahu.

Having had their competence and conduct embarrassingly exposed during operations against Hezbollah, Israel has imposed a ban on media coverage of its Gaza operations. Yet to its discomfiture, enough has come out to enrage the world, though not to put to shame its supporters, who continue to peddle worn-out lies to justify Israel’s violations of international law that could include crimes against humanity.

It has nevertheless, brought to the surface the growing divide between the rulers and the ruled in the Arab world. While the streets are chanting with slogans condemning Israel and its benefactors, the rulers appear oblivious to the growing rage. Instead, they seek succour and solace from the US while paying lip service to the Palestinian cause. In reality, they view the Palestinian cause as a threat to their regimes.

Egypt’s position is unenviable. It continues to harbour pretensions of being the Arab world’s leader and setting the region’s agenda. But it has pursued policies that promote US interests and insists on close relations with Israel at a time when the regime is preparing for a transition from the nearly three-decade rule of Hosni Mubarak. Moreover, as the spiritual heir to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas is viewed with mistrust.

The Saudis find themselves in a quandary. Though ideologically close to Hamas, they are averse to any organisation that seeks sustenance from the popular will.

But most uncomfortable is Jordan’s position. With Palestinians constituting the country’s overwhelming majority, the Hashemite monarchy, while liberal and progressive, continues to be viewed as a foreign entity. It has therefore relied on the West and even occasionally Israel for its survival. Thus, more than its politics, what makes the Arab regimes as well as the US deeply hostile to Hamas is its popularity among the Palestinians.

Syria’s minority Ala’wite Ba’athist regime, has traditionally supported radical causes and developed close ties with Iran, thereby incurring its neighbours’ displeasure, but enjoying popular accolades. Syria’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah gives it credibility in the region and permits it to use it as leverage in negotiations with Israel.

But as Nicholas Kristoff recalled in the New York Times recently, “It is worth remembering that Israel helped nurture Hamas”. When Hamas was founded in 1987, Israel figured that a religious organisation would help undermine the nationalist Fatah. So Israel cracked down on Fatah and allowed Hamas to rise as a counter-force. Its refusal to negotiate with Fatah not only weakened it but also exposed its credibility. In the meanwhile, the “extremists on each side sustained the other”, more so the Gazans who belong to families that were evicted by the Israeli Army in 1948 from towns such as Ashkelon and Beersheba.

The war on Gaza is not about ceasefire violations nor is it about “restoring Israel’s deterrence”, as it claims. In the words of Moshe Yaalon, a former Israeli defence chief, it is to make the Palestinians “understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people”. Or as Avi Schlaim, the well-known Israeli author pointed out recently in the Guardian: “Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post colonial era. Jewish settlements in occupied territory are immoral, illegal and an insurmountable obstacle to peace. They are at once an instrument of exploitation and the symbol of the hated occupation.”

The Israeli incursion will not crush Hamas, nor reduce extremism. In fact, if Hamas survives Israel’s all-out assault, it will have gained in stature and standing, further discrediting President Mahmoud Abbas and exposing the fickleness of moderate Arab leaders. There is a growing fear, particularly in Egypt and Jordan that a fundamental tenet of the Middle East peace process — the so-called two-state solution — could soon become irrelevant. If this were to happen, Egypt and Jordan may be forced to absorb the Palestinian population now living in Gaza.

Worse for them, it could see Iran’s influence expand, to their detriment. The Palestinian cause, which has historically struck a deep emotional chord in the Islamic world, could yet deepen regional rivalries and upset traditional balances of power in the Middle East. Israel may come to regret the day it launched its attack on Gaza.

THE smart money in the Middle East is always on pessimism. Events can be relied on to get worse and worse. But perennial gloom has a flaw. Its unstated assumption is that the war between Israelis and Palestinians is somehow unique — that it is the only conflict in the history of the world that cannot be solved or even ended.

Yet even as the horror continues in Gaza, it’s worth recalling that people were once just as fatalistic about battles now long settled. Whether it was apartheid in South Africa or the 30-year bloodshed in Northern Ireland, there were plenty of dark days when the blood seemed as if it would never stop.

Which is why the mention of Northern Ireland, once a byword for strife, is now an invocation of hope. If republicans and unionists — who once wished each other dead — can sit in government together, then surely Israelis and Palestinians are not fated to fight for ever.

That message is in the air just now, with both the Irish prime minister and Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams urging the warring parties of the Middle East to learn their lesson and begin “dialogue”.

It’s a statement of the obvious that the two conflicts are not the same: none ever are. The wildest elements of the IRA were never committed, even rhetorically, to the destruction of Great Britain. Yet Hamas’s charter does call for the eradication of the state of Israel. (Those close to the organisation insist the document has in effect lapsed.)

Nevertheless, there are important similarities. The two sides were fighting over the future of a small piece of territory. The unionist majority often complained that it stood alone, uncomprehended by the rest of the world.

What though of the solution? There are at least a few steps that brought eventual peace to Northern Ireland that could be emulated in the Middle East but they would require an enormous leap of imagination on all sides.

Perhaps the very first move would be a true declaration of intent from Israel. This would be an analogue of the statement in 1990 by the then Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Brooke, that the British government had no “selfish strategic or economic interest” in retaining the province. If Israel were to make an equally unambiguous declaration that it planned to end its occupation of the West Bank and dismantle the settlements necessary to make room for a viable Palestinian state, that could have a similarly profound effect.

Those who say no Israeli would ever be so bold should read the extraordinary interview Ehud Olmert gave to Yediot Achronot the day he tendered his resignation last September. “We must reach an agreement with the Palestinians, meaning a withdrawal from nearly all, if not all, of the [occupied] territories,” Olmert said. Signalling that he understood the wisdom of the Brooke manoeuvre, he suggested that Menachem Begin’s “genius” in forging a peace with Egypt was that he “started from the end. He began by saying, ‘I am ready to pull out of the entire Sinai — now let us negotiate’.”

The second move has to take place inside the heads of both sides: it is the realisation that no military solution will ever be possible. The road to peace in Northern Ireland began when the British army concluded it could never fight the IRA to more than an “honourable draw” and when the IRA realised it would never bomb British troops out of the province.

Hamas has similarly to conclude that suicide bombs on Israeli buses and rockets aimed at Israel’s southern towns will delay, not bring, an end to occupation. Israel has to understand that a movement like Hamas, rooted in the soil of Gaza, cannot be crushed by force. That, on the contrary, raining fire on Gaza will have the same effect on Hamas that internment had on the IRA: it will recruit a new generation of fighters, making it stronger not weaker.

There are elements within Hamas readier than most Israelis realise to negotiate an end to occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines.

— The Guardian, London