US embassy cable - 05AMMAN6353

UNCLAS AMMAN 006353 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, JO, UNGA 
SUBJECT: MORE JORDANIAN REACTION TO PROPOSED UN HUMAN 
RIGHTS COUNCIL 
 
REF: A. STATE 140191 
 
     B. AMMAN 5104 
     C. AMMAN 6200 
 
1. (SBU) Summary. The head of the Human Rights Directorate of 
the Jordanian Foreign Ministry is supportive of the U.S. 
proposal for a new Human Rights Council (HRC) at the UN. 
However, he held back from fully endorsing all of the details 
of the proposal, with an eye still on the Arab group's, and 
especially Egypt's, emerging position. End Summary. 
 
2. (SBU) Poloff met August 4 with Minister Counselor Ziad 
Majali, head of the Human Rights Directorate of the Jordanian 
Foreign Ministry, to hear Majali's reaction to ref A points 
of clarification regarding the creation of a new HRC. Majali 
echoed his sentiments from an earlier meeting (ref B), saying 
that as a matter of principle, the GOJ agrees to the U.S. 
proposal for the HRC. Majali was happy to see that his 
concerns about membership requirements were addressed by the 
new points, though he stopped short of a complete endorsement 
of the U.S. proposal in its entirety. 
 
3. (SBU) In Majali's view, the most important next step is to 
get broad agreement in principle to the proposal, and then 
work out the details at the upcoming UNGA. He hoped that 
other Arab countries, particularly Egypt, were receiving the 
same information as he, and was interested to know the 
reaction of the GOE on the HRC proposal. 
 
4. (SBU) Majali said that while he agrees with the proposed 
membership requirements for the HRC (i.e., that countries 
subject to Security Council sanctions not be eligible) he 
believes that a new membership requirement might be in order 
for the Security Council itself. Since, according to ref A 
points, one measure at the disposal of the HRC would be to 
recommend Security Council review of a country's human rights 
violations, Majali argued that it would be a conflict of 
interest to have a Security Council member investigate its 
own alleged human rights abuses, but offered the unrealistic 
remedy of limiting membership in the Security Council to 
countries that are completely "in line" with UN agreements on 
human rights. 
HALE