Morocco’s presidency of the Human Rights Council is a new model for international relations

Carlos del Valle, a Chilean academic writer at the University of La Frontera, noted the election of Omar Zniber, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Morocco to the organization’s office in Geneva, as President of the United Nations Human Rights Council during the year 2024, describing it as good news.

The Chilean academic, in his article entitled “Presidency of the Kingdom of Morocco of the United Nations Human Rights Council: The Political Desire to Bring about Change,” considered this election an indication that the tradition of promoting and defending human rights is not limited to some countries in the North or Middle of the world, but rather that The South of the planet also has an important role in protecting these rights, and the latter is a space that is not only associated with the weakness or absence of a culture of human rights as is usually attributed to it from the North.

In this sense, the same writer asserts, in the article translated by Idriss Ould El Haj, a research professor at the Faculty of Languages, Arts and Human Sciences in Settat, that choosing Morocco to perform this task indicates a new pattern of international relations that is more horizontal and balanced. A pattern whose features are becoming more and more apparent in other countries of the South.

He added, “In fact, as countries belonging to the southern region, it is our duty to celebrate this decision, and to seize the opportunity to rethink the capabilities and limits of the current model in understanding and analyzing human rights, especially in contexts characterized by a great deal of social, cultural, and political complexity.”

The same writer highlighted “Morocco’s ratification in recent years of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Therefore, we should not be surprised by this resolution issued by the United Nations Human Rights Council, especially if we take into account the important steps that Morocco has taken in this direction.”

In this regard, the same academic referred to Morocco’s promotion of human rights as they are internationally recognized, and enshrined and guaranteed them in its new constitution, which was approved in a popular referendum held on July 1, 2011, recalling a report prepared by an independent expert in the same year that shed light on the initiatives aimed at To promote cultural rights and cultural diversity in Morocco.

For her part, Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former President of Chile, said in a recent speech on the human rights situation in Morocco: “I commend the important reforms that have recently been implemented in Morocco and the opportunities they provide for many people across the country.”

The 2019 report of the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance noted that “Morocco has demonstrated its leadership in critical areas related to achieving racial equality,” highlighting “the political will for reform demonstrated by many From government interlocutors.” Morocco’s important diplomatic history, coupled with its extensive experience in international and inter-cultural relations, constitutes a guarantee for confronting global challenges in the field of human rights.

In Latin America, for example, there are still many major challenges related to human rights, but governments remain passive in the face of them, content with facing economic emergencies and raging conflicts here and there. In such a context, it is worth looking at the case of Morocco as a sign of political will to bring about change.