Argentine jurist to lead UN Human Rights Committee

[forest444]

Source: Buenos Aires Herald

Argentine jurist Fabián Salvioli was unanimously elected to lead the UN Human Rights Committee this morning. The 51-year-old lawyer will be presiding over the UN body for one year. He has been a member of the UN Human Rights Committee since 2009. The Human Rights Committee is the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Salvioli has also been critical of the Argentine Judiciary. He complained that some judges lack academic training in human rights and all too often do not have a gender perspective. “I think those magistrates should be out of the Judiciary,” he told the Herald last year. Salvioli began his career at Amnesty International and has worked in numerous human rights groups. He is also the director of the University of La Plata’s Human Rights Institute.

Read more: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/184484/argentine-jurist-to-lead-un-human-rights-committee

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At a time when much of Latin America is returning to its era of repression, dirty wars, and human rights atrocities, its good to see the international community recognize Argentina for its efforts in human rights.

As Salvioli pointed out, much of this progress (including the 1,100+ trials for past abuses) was accomplished despite Argentina's judiciary. That was no coincidence, since 30% of Argentine judges on the bench today actively collaborated with the 1976-83 dictatorship in one capacity or another (53 have in fact been charged with criminal conduct).

The problem is that most Argentine judges have historically tended to be in the mold of an Antonin Scalia, and far too many belong to the far-right Opus Dei - an issue most judiciaries in the Spanish-speaking world share. A veritable fifth column - much like Scalia-the-Hutt is here in the U.S.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Argentina learned so much of what it knows about NOT "human rights" right here,

with its military officials and soldiers getting advanced instruction from the US-controlled School of the Americas, and so much support and supervising of their Dirty War done by our own beloved Henry Kissinger.

It's great seeing the heroic struggle made by the same left which was the target of the tortures and the murders and the flying mass deaths into the ocean from military aircraft in Argentina, as they chained their suspected "leftists" together and threw them out of their planes over the ocean, and the rivers.

The heavy-handed right-wing fascists of Argentina never have given up, but every day Argentina struggles to become a little more free of its hideous past.

It's great seeing someone representing the human beings of Argentina moving into this respected position on the UN Human Rights Committee for a year.