[Prefatory Note: The collaborative opinion piece below written by the Geneva jurist, Alfred de Zayas, and myself, is a reaction again the criticism directed at the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, about her recent mission to China. The complaint of Western governments, mainstream journalists, and some China experts was that the Chinese deflected criticism of their human rights record by manipulating the mission as shown by the mission report failing to echo the most strident charges directed at China, especially of genocide in relation to the Uyghur minority mainly living in Xinjiang Province. Our response was published in COUNTERPUNCH on June 9, 2022 under the title of The Unjustified Criticism of High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet’s Visit To China. Rather than provoking a critical storm the mission, in our judgment, should have been applauded with a sustained shout of BRAVO! The sad sequel to this incident is the announcement that Ms. Bachelet has decided not to seek a renewal of her term as High Commissioner. I would point out that it will be a long time before the U.S. is as forthcoming, inviting an investigative mission by the Human Rights Commission and subjecting its future internal policy to review and cooperative mechanisms with a UN agency.
Bachelet during a television debate in 2005.
As former UN rapporteurs we are committed to the promotion and protection of human rights in all corners of the world, including China. Progress can only be achieved on the basis on good faith implementation of the UN Charter and UN human rights treaties, and requires patience, perseverance, and international solidarity.
An artificial atmosphere of hostility, sustained by geopolitical agendas, double standards, fake news and skewed narratives has made it difficult to tackle specific human rights problems and advance the progressive enjoyment of human rights in larger freedom. Human rights allegations have been selectively deployed as a geopolitical tool, above all to stoke the embers of confrontation, so high on the agenda of both the Trump and Biden presidencies.
Already in April 2021, in an essay on China published in Counterpunch[1], we noted that spreading propaganda about a supposed “genocide” in Xinjiang was highly irresponsible and would poison relations between the US and China besides weakening the human rights discourse. We then warned that such hyperbolic narratives would make it more difficult to increase respect human rights concerns in other more appropriate settings. A similar essay was published by Professors Jeffrey Sachs and William Schabas in Project Syndicate[2]. In a variety of fora we have since repeatedly called for more professionalism on the part of politicians, journalists and human rights activists in addressing human rights issues, which are always delicate matters as infringing upon sovereign rights unless reliably grounded in objective appraisal of evidence. Otherwise, as in relation to China, allegations can be perverted into serving the ends of coercive diplomacy and even war-mongering.
The invitation by the Chinese government to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to come and see for herself, and the invitation to UN rapporteurs were very positive signs, and rarely has a government under scrutiny been so forthcoming. It represents an important show of confidence by China and its leadership in its own willingness to uphold international norms and to have trust in the impartiality of the HRC and its High Commissioner. China should have been applauded along with Ms. Michelle Bachelet instead of being subjected to a barrage of geopolitically motivated hostile propaganda. She accepted the invitation some months ago, dispatching in April an advance-team of five OHCHR professionals to prepare her mission.[3]
While many welcomed China’s opening to the United Nations, some politicians who evidently are not interested in objective assessments but a priori already have their standard condemnation of China, criticized Bachelet’s intention to visit China and advised her not to go[4]. This is not unlike the experience of the UN independent expert, co-author de Zayas, on international order, who prior to his mission to Venezuela in November/December 2017 (the first in 21 years) received letters and emails from some NGO’s asking him not to go, because, of course, as everybody already knew, the Venezuelan government was corrupt and incompetent and that the only proper function of a rapporteur would be to demand “regime change”[5]. This disturbingly politicized approach to human rights missions – and indeed any form of independent assessment – misuses and inflates human rights wrongs as part of a mobilization of public opinion against the targeted state, and often preceded regime-changing interventions as in Iraq, 2003. Partaking of such a politicized approach to human rights should be unworthy of a High Commissioner, UN rapporteurs or special envoys, and should not be indulged, as it sometimes is, by human rights NGOs.
At the end of her six-day mission to China, Bachelet issued a highly informative, comprehensive, and nuanced end-of-mission statement in Guangzhou on 28 May 2022. https://vimeo.com/714742493 that constitutes the most trustworthy assessment of China’s human rights record that is now available.
To our dismay, instead of hailing the breakthrough achieved by Michelle Bachelet in opening the door to OHCHR monitoring and cooperation, a number of academics and NGOs criticized the High Commissioner’s mission to China, condemning it as a “failed visit”[6] with some critics even calling for her resignation[7]. As UN former rapporteurs who recognize the ground-breaking nature of Bachelet’s visit, we strongly reject such unjustifiable criticism and consider that impressive progress has been achieved by this highly professional mission to China, a first to China in 17 years by a UN High Commissioner. We note with satisfaction that Bachelet returned to Geneva with positive prospects for future cooperation, including the formalization of a mechanism for future activities to strengthen the observance of human rights in China. A likely first step will be to arrange future visits by the High Commissioner of the HRC, by UN rapporteurs and working groups, and even by other UN agencies such as ILO, WHO and UNHCR. We would take note of the fact that no comparable gestures of cooperation with UN on human rights matters has been exhibited by China’s leading adversary, the United States.
It appears that some critics have misunderstood the High Commissioner’s mandate[8] pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 48/141, and disregard the over-all purpose of the Human Rights Council, which is to assist countries in improving their human rights performance. Progress in human rights terms is not achieved by confrontational policies, by “naming and shaming” or by insulting governments, but rather by patient investigation of the root causes of problems, rigorous compilation of evidence, balanced evaluation of the facts in their proper context, due consideration of all views by governments, civil society, non-governmental organizations, academics and victims. That was precisely the focus of the High Commissioner’s mission to China.
Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 48/141, High Commissioners:
“Function within the framework of the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, other international instruments of human rights and international law, including the obligations, within this framework, to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and domestic jurisdiction of States and to promote the universal respect for and observance of all human rights, in the recognition that, in the framework of the purposes and principles of the Charter, the promotion and protection of all human rights is a legitimate concern of the international community.”
Among the duties of every High Commissioner are
“To provide… advisory services and technical and financial assistance, at the request of the State concerned and, where appropriate, the regional human rights organizations, with a view to supporting actions and programmes in the field of human rights;
To engage in a dialogue with all Governments in the implementation of his/her mandate…”
The end of mission statement made by Michelle Bachelet demonstrates she diligently listened to the views and grievance of all parties, pursuant to the rule “listen to all sides” — audiatur et altera pars. Her mission encompassed a wide range of issues bearing on civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights, including the rule of law, the administration of justice, the death penalty, civil society participation in the political processes, freedom of expression, human rights defenders, climate change, world peace, the sustainable development goals, and others.
With regard to the allegations concerning grave human rights violations in Xinjiang, the mission statement notes:
“In the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, I have raised questions and concerns about the application of counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation measures and their broad application – particularly their impact on the rights of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities. While I am unable to assess the full scale of the Vocational Education and Training Centres, I raised with the Government the lack of independent judicial oversight of the operation of the program, the reliance by law enforcement officials on 15 indicators to determine tendencies towards violent extremism, allegations of the use of force and ill treatment in institutions, and reports of unduly severe restrictions on legitimate religious practices. During my visit, the Government assured me that the VETC system has been dismantled. I encouraged the Government to undertake a review of all counter terrorism and deradicalization policies to ensure they fully comply with international human rights standards, and in particular that they are not applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory way.
Before coming to China, I heard from some Uyghur families now living abroad who have lost contact with their loved ones. In my discussions with the authorities, I appealed to them to take measures to provide information to families as a matter of priority.”
With regard to Tibet Bachelet observed:
“it is important that the linguistic, religious and cultural identity of Tibetans be protected, and that Tibetan people are allowed to participate fully and freely in decisions about their religious life and for dialogue to take place. I discussed education policies in the Tibet Autonomous Region and stressed the importance of children learning in their own language and culture in the setting of their families or communities.”
With regard to Hong Kong she noted:
“Hong Kong has long been respected as a centre for human rights and independent media in the region. It is important that the Government there do all it can to nurture – and not stifle – the tremendous potential for civil society and academics in Hong Kong to contribute to the promotion and protection of human rights in the HKSAR and beyond. The arrests of lawyers, activists, journalists and others under the National Security Law are deeply worrying. Hong Kong is due to be reviewed by the UN Human Rights Committee in July, as a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”
The mission must be seen as the beginning of a process that will hopefully contribute to the gradual improvement of the human rights situation in China. This must be welcomed by all governments, civil society and professionally responsible NGOs. In this regard we are appalled by those private sector organizations (NGOs and think tanks) proclaiming a commitment to human rights yet in their operations, often funded by the U.S. Government or wealthy right-wing donors, exemplified by the National Endowment for Democracy.
Among the many successes of the Bachelet mission, we highlight arrangements calling for further cooperation between OHCHR and China. In the words of the report: “We also agreed to establish a working group to facilitate substantive exchanges and cooperation between my Office and the Government through meetings in Beijing and in Geneva, as well as virtual meetings. This working group will organize a series of follow-up discussions about specific thematic areas, including but not limited to development, poverty alleviation and human rights, rights of minorities, business and human rights, counter-terrorism and human rights, digital space and human rights, judicial and legal protection and human rights, as well as other issues raised by either side.
This will allow for structured engagement of my Office with China on a number of human rights issues. This is especially important as my Office does not have a country presence. The working group will also provide a space for us to bring to attention of the Government a number of specific matters of concern. The Government has also stated that it will invite senior officials from the Office to visit China in the future.”
By any objective standard, such results represent a considerable success, which many countries in the West do not begin to match. As we know, the United States has not allowed the UN to visit Guantanamo in more than 21 years. Similarly, Israel does not allow UN rapporteurs to enter the territory in order to conduct independent fact-finding on the ground in territory seized during the 1967 War, and subjected to harsh military administration for more than half a century with no end in sight. Indeed, the silence of those most shrilly complaining about China’s human rights violations are embarrassingly silent about the abundantly documented findings that Israel is guilty of apartheid. Such findings an apt occasion for media criticism and governmental reaction, but for opposite reasons to the push against China, we note this failure to respond to the grossest of human rights violations not only in Israel, but such flagrant disregard of human rights by the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and a host of others.
What strikes us as independent observers, is the intellectual dishonesty of the mainstream media platforms –as abetted by those academics and NGOs that selectively view human rights through a geopolitical optic that demonizes some situations while exempting others more severe from scrutiny. The chorus of Sinophobia and “hate speech, itself in contravention of article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, manifests opportunism and intellectual dishonesty, because the same ngo’s turn a blind eye toward other geopolitically inconvenient transgressions.
It is worth contrasting the use of the term “genocide” by the United States and its friends in their referencing of the situation in Xinjiang with other instances, far better documented, of genocide in the world. Such inflammatory language would have to be backed up by verifiable evidence, but it is not. Even the one-sided Uyghur Tribunal in London refrained from making a finding on genocide with regard to killings or population transfers. Whoever has followed developments around the Uygur tribunal and the disinformation in the corporate media realizes that the tribunal was pre-determined to reach certain conclusions, namely that genocide occurred. The so-called “trial” was conducted on the basis of a “presumption of guilt.” Therefore, it would not deserve our attention, except that it has functioned as a tool of dangerous hostile propaganda by which the “narrative managers” in the corporate media are now channelling in mounting their malicious campaign against Michelle Bachelet.
The judgment as rendered is not as sensationalist and inflammatory as the tribunal convenors and Sinophobic media hoped for. The Tribunal reviewed the five acts of genocide listed in article 2 of the 1948 Genocide Convention, and rejected four of them, observing that there is no evidence of genocidal intent. The judgment of the Tribunal does go on to examine the fourth listed criterion of genocide–imposing measures on a racially distinct group to prevent reproduction and this practice was deemed sufficient to uphold the allegation of genocide. There is really no relevant antecedents to support such a finding. The Uyghur case is a peculiar candidate for such a momentous finding. The clear purpose of the Chinese measures is not and never was to “destroy in whole or in part” the Uyghur group by suppression of births, but reflects a general population-control strategy in a country that already has 1.4 billion human beings, and has long experimented with various kinds of population control and stabilization policies and practices.
Considering the Sinophobic articles that have been published in the Western press, it is remarkable how the media keeps silent about the highly credible documentation of the Apartheid[9] allegations against Israel and gross human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. As well, the media downplays the responsibility of the United States and Saudi Arabia for the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today – Yemen[10]. The use and abuse of human rights as a geopolitical tool is so irresponsible to the genuine protection of human rights that it is itself worthy of an investigation by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as by genuinely dedicated members of the global human rights community.
For now, we content ourselves with this show of support for the breakthrough success of Bachelet’s HRC mission to China, and decry those who would distort such an achievement so as to continue with their efforts to rationalize confronting China coercively. Opportunism in relation to human rights is not a path to peace and justice in our tormented world, which depends on cooperation and multilateralism, and should reject as irresponsible all efforts to split the world into a self-righteous struggle between good and evil. Such a normative binary will exert serious damage on the world economy, causing harsh suffering in the least developed countries, and spark more wasteful and dangerous spending on military capabilities that should never be used.
Notes.
[1] https://www.mfa.gov.cn/ce/cgjed/eng/xgxw/t1874614.htm
[2] https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/biden-should-withdraw-unjustified-xinjiang-genocide-allegation-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-and-william-schabas-2021-04
[3] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/05/bachelet-conduct-official-visit-china-23-28-may-2022
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/20/un-human-rights-commissioner-xinjiang-michelle-bachelet-criticised
[5] See the report of the IE to the Human Rights Council https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/ie-international-order/country-visits
[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/01/uyghurs-michelle-bachelet-china-visit-failure/
[7] https://www.news24.com/news24/world/news/dozens-of-ngos-call-on-un-rights-chief-to-resign-after-china-visit-20220608
[8] http://www.un-documents.net/a48r141.htm
[9] https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
[10] https://www.unfpa.org/yemen
Alfred de Zayas is a lawyer, writer, historian, expert in the field of human rights and international law and retired high-ranking United Nations official. Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Global Justice in the 21st Century 
Saudi Arabia, Royal Impunity, and the Quicksand of Special Relationships
20 Oct(Prefatory Note: This post is a substantially revised version of an opinion piece published online by Middle East Eye on October 6, 2015; it challenges the geopolitics of impunity from both principled and pragmatic perspectives, and also casts doubts on ‘special relationships’ that the United States has established in the Middle East with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Finally, an effort is made to suggest that there is an alternative based essentially on the practical wisdom in the 21st century of upholding and strengthening the global rule of law.)
Saudi Arabia enjoys a spectacular level of impunity from international accountability. This is not only because it a powerful monarchy or has the world’s richest and largest royal family with influence spread far and wide. And it is not even just about oil, although having a quarter of the world’s pre-fracking energy reserves still engenders utmost deference from those many modern economies that will depend on Gulf oil and gas for as long as this precious black stuff lasts. The Saudi comfort zone is also sustained by its special relationship with the United States that provides geopolitical backing of great benefit.
This refusal to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for upholding law and morality raised mainstream eyebrows that have usually looked the other way when it came to the Saudi record on human rights. Recently electing Saudi Arabia to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), partly due to a secret vote swap with the UK, seemed to cross a hereto invisible line. And if that was not enough of an affront to cosmetic morality in the sphere of human rights, the Saudi UN ambassador has been recently selected to chair the influential HRC ‘ consultative panel that recommends to the President of the Council a short-list of whom shall be appointed as Special Rapporteurs, including on such issues as right to women, freedom of expression, and religious freedom.
This news is coupled with confirmation that Saudi Arabia has inflicted more beheadings than ISIS this year, over 2 a day, and has ordered Ali Mohammed al-Nimr to be executed by crucifixion for taking part in an anti-monarchy demonstration when he was 17. In a second representative case, the popular blogger, Raif Badawi, was sentenced to a long prison term and 1000 lashes in public for criticizing the monarchy. This behavior resembles the barbarism of ISIS more than it exhibits qualifications to occupy senior UN positions dealing with human rights.
Additionally, Riyadh like Damascus, seems guilty of severe war crimes due to its repeated and indiscriminate targeting of civilians during its dubious Yemen intervention. The worst incident of late was an air strike targeting a wedding party on September 29th, killing 131 civilians, including many women and children, but the overall pattern of the Saudi military onslaught has been oblivious to the constraints of international humanitarian law as embodied in the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
The Saudi mismatch between stature and behavior cannot be considered, as it appears to be, a grotesque anomaly in the global normative order. Instead, it fits neatly into a coherent geopolitical pattern. Ever since World War II Saudi Arabia has been an indispensable strategic asset for the West. Oil is the core explanation of this affinity, but it is far from the whole story. Earlier Saudi anti-Communism was important, a kind of health insurance policy for the West that the government would not lured into the Soviet orbit or adopt a non-aligned position in the manner of Nasser’s Egypt, which would have dangerously undermined energy security for Western Europe.
In recent years, converging patterns of extreme hostility toward Iran that Saudi Arabia shares with Israel has delighted Washington planners who had long been challenged by the difficulty of juggling unconditional support for Israel with an almost absolute dependence of the West on keeping Gulf oil flowing at affordable prices. This potential vulnerability was vividly revealed in the aftermath of the 1973 Middle East War when Saudi Arabia expressed the dissatisfaction of the Arab world with Western pro-Israel positioning by persuading OPEC to impose an oil embargo that caused a global panic attack. This crisis unfolded on two levels– a high road revealing Western vulnerability to Middle Eastern oil and a low road of severe consumer discontent in reaction to long gas lines and higher prices at the pump attributable to the embargo.
It was then that war hawks in the West murmured aloud about coercively ending the embargo by landing paratroopers on Saudi oil fields. Henry Kissinger, never troubled by war scenarios, speculated that such an intervention might be ‘necessary’ for the economic security of the West. The Saudi rulers heard this ‘never again’ pledge from the custodians of world order, and have since been careful not to step on Western toes.
Against such a background, it is hardly surprising that NGO concerns about the dreadful human rights landscape in Saudi Arabia falls on deaf ears. President Obama who never tires of telling the world that the national character of America requires it to live accord with its values, centering on human rights and democracy, holds his otherwise active tongue when it comes to Saudi Arabia. He is busy reassuring the new Saudi king that the US remains as committed as ever to this second ‘special relationship’ in the Middle East, the first being, of course, with Israel.
If we look beneath the word ‘special,’ which conveys the added importance attached of the relationship, it seems to imply unconditional support, including a refusal to voice criticism in public. US geopolitical backing confers impunity, shielding a beneficiary from any pushback by the international community at the UN or elsewhere. There are other perks that come with this status additional to impunity. Perhaps none more notable than the embarrassment associated with hustling Saudi notables out of the United States the day after the 9/11 attacks. Remember that 15 of the 19 plane hijackers were Saudi nationals, and the US Government still refuses to release 28 pages of detailed evidence on alleged Saudi connections with Al Qaeda gathered by the 9/11 investigative commission.
Surely if Iran had remotely comparable linkages to those notorious events it would likely have produced a casus belli; recall that the justification for attacking Iraq in 2003 was partially based on flimsy fictitious allegations of Baghdad’s 9/11 complicity.
The Saudi special relationship (unlike that with Israel) is more mutually beneficial. Because of the enormous revenues earned by selling 10 million barrels of oil a day for decades, Saudi unwavering support for the dollar as the currency of account has been of crucial help to the American ambition to dominate the global economy. Beyond this, the Saudis after pushing the world price of oil up by as much as 400% in the 1970s quickly healed the wounds by a massive recycling of so-called petrodollars through investments in Europe and North America, and especially appreciated, have been the Saudi purchase of many billions of dollars worth of arms over the years. The United States did its part to uphold the relationship, especially by responding to the 1990 Iraqi attack on Kuwait that also menaced Saudi Arabia. By deploying 400,000 troops in Saudi Arabia and leading the successful effort to compel Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, American reliability as Saudis protective big brother was convincingly upheld. Of course, in this interest there was a genuine convergence of interests. Western policy as shaped by American foreign policy accorded an absolute priority to keeping Gulf oil in friendly hands.
Despite the major strategic benefits to both sides, the most remarkable aspect of this special relationship is its survival in the face of the Saudi role in its massive worldwide funding of Islamic anti-Western militancy or jihadism. Saudi promotion of religious education with a Wahhabist slant is widely believed to be largely responsible for the rise and spread of jihadism, and the resultant turmoil.
I would have thought that the West, especially after 9/11 would insist that Saudi Arabia stop supporting Wahhabist style extremism abroad, even if it overlooked denials of human rights at home due to the imposition of harsh controls upon freedom of expression, of association, women’s rights, cruel and unusual punishments. More damaging in its political consequences than being the shield of Saudi impunity is the willingness of the US to go along with the anti-Iranian sectarian line that the Saudi leadership relies upon to justify such controversial moves as direct interventions in Bahrain and Yemen, as well as the provision of weapons and money to anti-Assad forces in Syria.
Saudi opportunism became evident when the kingdom threw its diplomatic support and a large bundle of cash to an anti-Sunni coup in Egypt against the elected Muslim Brotherhood government. Saudi’s true enemies are determined by the threat posed to the stability of the monarchy, and not by their sectarian identity. In this sense Iran is an enemy because it is a regional rival that threatens to impinge upon the role and influence of Saudi Arabia, and not because of its adherence to a Shia variety of Islam. Similarly the Muslim Brotherhood, despite being of Sunni persuasion, was perceived as as a threat to royal absolutism by its democratizing challenge directed at the Mubarak autocracy. Sectarian identity is distinctly secondary, especially for the Saudi monarchy that is responsible for the conduct of foreign policy. At home, the stability of royal governance is sustained by allowing a free rein to the Wahhabi religious leadership that subject the Saudi people to its severe sectarian constraints.
Saudi impunity makes us appreciate the value of normal relationships among sovereign states. These do not entail exemptions from accountability in relation to international crimes and human rights violations. These special relationships have become politically costly in this century, especially if used to protect rogue states from international scrutiny. Accountability based on the rule of law is far better for stability, security, and sustainable peace than impunity. It has become increasingly awkward for US Government to validate, in part, its global role by championing human rights while refusing to blink when it comes to the most minimum expectations of accountability for Saudi Arabia or Israel.
I would go further, and argue that such special relationships, although expressions of the primacy of geopolitics (as over against the implementation of a global rule of law), do not serve on balance to uphold national interests in the course of abandoning national values. Contrary to the precepts of political realism, in the Middle East these two special relationships unthinkingly bind the United States and its European allies to a failing foreign policy that has occasioned great suffering for many of the peoples of the region. The migration crisis that is one direct effect of these unfortunate policies, especially military intervention, is finally leading observers to connect some dots, and recognize that what is done in the Middle East has menacing reverberations for Europe. As well, it further damages the reputation of the United States as a principled leader in a global setting that is serving the global public good as well as promoting its national policy priorities. Perhaps, that reputation is tarnished beyond recovery at this point in any event, making repetitional considerations almost irrelevant.
Normal
0
false
false
false
EN-US
JA
X-NONE
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
Tags: accountability, Human rights, Human Rights Council, international law, jihadism, Saudi Arabia, sectarianism, Wahabbism