Louise Arbour isn’t a disgrace, she’s irrellevant
Vic Toews called Louise Arbour a "disgrace" in the House of Commons. He's wrong. Ms. Arbour isn't a "disgrace," she's just irrelevant.
Joseph C. Ben-Ami - June 26, 2008
When federal Treasury Board President and former Minister of Justice Vic Toews called outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour a “disgrace” in the House of Commons recently, he missed the mark. The real problem isn’t that Louise Arbour is a disgrace, it’s that she--and by extension the entire UN human rights bureaucracy--is irrelevant. One need only read Claire L’Heureux-Dube’s spirited defence of Ms. Arbour and her record, published in the June 21 Ottawa Citizen to understand just how irrelevant.
Ms. L’Heureux-Dube is the director of Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, a group that she claims “monitors acts of persecution and harassment” of lawyers and human rights advocates around the world. Like Ms. Arbour, she is also a former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Ms. L’Heureux-Dube praises Ms. Arbour for bringing a “new relevance to her office” by being a “timely intervenor” when innocent people and civilians are threatened by conflict. As evidence she draws our attention to Ms. Arbour’s statement in April calling on both sides of the political showdown in Zimbabwe to “restrain” their supporters.
A second example cited by Ms. L’Heureux-Dube of Ms. Arbour’s important work are her 2006 comments directed toward Israel and Hezbollah that “indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians” and that “bombardment of sites with alleged military significance” that results in civilian deaths is unjustifiable. Ms. L’Heureux-Dube is particularly proud of this statement because of its apparent impartiality and because, according to her, it successfully reminded all parties of “the possibility of personal criminal responsibility.”
The discerning observer will notice that the “timely” interventions cited by Ms. L’Heureux-Dube have one thing in common--they are all words. No tangible action, direct or indirect, was taken by either Louise Arbour or her office that resulted in the protection of a single innocent person or civilian.
How many lives were saved in Zimbabwe as a result of Ms. Arbour’s stern warnings? Answer: none.
How many rockets did Hezbollah hold back in response to Ms. Arbour’s earnest admonitions in 2006? How many has Hamas held back since? Answer: none.
How many women convicted of adultery were spared public execution in Iran as a result of any of Ms. Arbour’s strong statements? Answer: none.
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