VI. CONCLUSION

It has become clear to the EIPR that the Egyptian Ministry for Foreign Affairs has taken, since the beginning of the year and over the past eight months, a series of negative initiatives with the aim of weakening the UN’s protection of human rights and its supervision of the implementation of international agreements on human rights. This stance conflicts with Egypt’s obligations to work towards the support of human rights under the UN Charter. Similarly, this stance is unworthy of Egypt’s size, role and history as a founding member of the UN in 1945, and as a participant in the first meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1946. Egypt’s current position also conflicts with the positive contribution made by the Egyptian delegate, Dr. Mahmoud Azmy Pasha, in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

The Egyptian government has chosen to focus on protecting itself from criticism and international supervision, and has made every effort to strip the proposed Human Rights Council of anything that might ensure its independence and effectiveness. This stance will, unfortunately, have significant long-term ramifications: it will both negatively affect Egypt’s international standing and will also severely undermine the international community’s ability to prevent gross violations of international human rights law.

The human rights system is today in danger of suffering a genuine setback with governments and armed groups increasingly resorting to the use of violence and disregarding, in the name of the “war on terror,” the standards that humanity has fought long and hard to establish. This challenge necessitates that we work harder than before to protect these standards, without which security and development cannot be maintained.