Reviewed by:

• The UN Human Rights Council, a Practical Anatomy by Eric Tistounet
• Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro (bio)

Since 1946, the United Nations has sought to advance the cause of human rights. The Commission on Human Rights, envisioned in the UN Charter, held its first session in 1947 at an old gyroscope factory at Lake Success, New York, with the main task to write the International Bill of Rights. Until its extinction six decades later, the Commission adopted a large variety of international human rights instruments and promoted new avenues for monitoring violations in member states, foundations upon which the international community built the current international human rights system.

The results have been variable and often hard to specify with precision. Over the years, an extremely complex and somewhat inaccessible administrative structure has grown up. The new and the old continue living together through vicissitudes, crises and rearrangements in the UN human rights system. A Human Rights Council, in Geneva, replaced the Commission in 2006.

It is that complex stage where Eric Tistounet sets his extraordinary book The UN Human Rights Council, a Practical Anatomy. Tistounet has worked within the secretariat of the Council since its establishment and is better placed than anyone to unveil the Council's real functioning.

Since its foundation, the Council's mandate to monitor human rights in member states around the world continues to be a difficult task because the implementation of human rights is permanently subjected to the limitations and existing contradictions in the situation of world affairs. We must never forget that the Council is a multilateral body constituted by representatives of states which always try to protect their interests. Seeing representatives of governments criticize the action of other government, Sérgio Vieira de Mello once said that "it was like fish criticizing each other for being wet,"¹ because the political nature of international human rights bodies is an essential element in their functioning. The full depoliticization of the Council will never be achieved. It is wholly unrealistic to expect that the Council can be a sort of spaceship floating above reality, full of righteous saviors rescuing victims of abuse, freed from politics and hypocrisy, moved only by ethics. On the other hand, international bureaucratic organizations, despite being under the control exercised by states, function in practice with relative autonomy. Observing their rituals and proceedings we can learn a lot about ongoing social and political processes playing out in the international arena.

Notwithstanding these constraints, the Council has continued the work of the former Commission, preparing new conventions, considering human rights [End Page 404] situations in various countries, and developing new investigative mechanisms. In addition, there were decisive innovations that Tistounet describes and evaluates.

The Council has been elevated to the status of a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly, now with forty-seven members instead of fifty-three at the Commission, strengthening the representation of African and Asian states while weakening others. Instead of a single annual meeting, the Council has come to have a semi-permanent status, holding three sessions a year, with a total duration of at least ten weeks. As Tistounet said at the tenth anniversary of the Council, it operates like a theatrical event, with message, audience, and setting so that "we have moved from a short play with adequate intermissions to long operas without a pause."²

The Council has established several commissions of inquiry to serve as independent fact-finding bodies to investigate grave violations of human rights, including crimes against humanity, and to identify perpetrators for the purpose of holding them accountable. Tistounet examines the commission on Syria, established in 2011 and still in existence, as one of the many examples of the multifaceted processes in the Council.

The role of the HRC in responding promptly to human rights emergencies, has been strengthened with the possibility of holding Special Sessions and Urgent Debates on human rights crises in specific countries. In Syria alone, there were Special Sessions in 2011, 2012, and 2016. These sessions exposed the pattern of war crimes by all sides in that...

审核人：

• 联合国人权理事会，埃里克·提斯图奈特（Eric Tistounet）的实用解剖
• PauloSérgioPinheiro（生物）

自1946年以来，联合国一直致力于促进人权事业。《联合国宪章》设想的人权委员会于1947年在纽约成功湖的一家老陀螺仪工厂举行了第一届会议，其主要任务是编写《国际人权法案》。在六十年后灭绝之前，委员会通过了各种各样的国际人权文书，并为监测会员国的侵权行为开辟了新途径，这是国际社会为当前国际人权体系奠定基础的基础。

结果是可变的，通常很难精确指定。多年以来，一个非常复杂且几乎无法访问的管理结构已经发展起来。新老夫妇继续通过联合国人权制度的变迁，危机和重新安排生活在一起。日内瓦的一个人权理事会于2006年取代了该委员会。

在这个复杂的阶段，埃里克·提斯图奈特（Eric Tistounet）撰写了非凡的著作《联合国人权理事会，实用的解剖学》。自成立以来，Tistounet就一直在安理会秘书处内工作，比任何人都能更好地揭露安理会的实际职能。

自成立以来，安理会在全世界范围内监测人权的任务仍然是一项艰巨的任务，因为人权的实施永远受到世界事务局势的局限和现有矛盾的影响。我们决不能忘记，安理会是一个由国家代表组成的多边机构，它们总是试图保护自己的利益。塞吉奥·比埃拉·德梅洛（SérgioVieira de Mello）看到政府代表批评其他政府的行动时曾说过：“这就像鱼因相互弄湿而互相批评一样”，[ ^1]因为国际人权机构的政治性质是其运作的基本要素。安理会的全面非政治化将永远不会实现。指望安理会能成为一种漂浮在现实之上的飞船是完全不现实的，充满了正义的救星，他们从道德和伪善中解脱出来，只因道德操守而解救了受虐待的受害者。另一方面，国际官僚组织尽管受到国家的控制，但在实践中却具有相对的自主权。观察他们的仪式和程序，我们可以学到很多有关国际舞台上正在进行的社会和政治进程的知识。

尽管存在这些限制，但理事会仍在继续前委员会的工作，制定新公约，考虑各国人权状况[第404页]，并建立新的调查机制。此外，Tistounet还描述和评估了决定性的创新。

理事会已升格为联合国大会下属机构，现在在委员会中只有47名成员，而不是53名成员，从而加强了非洲和亚洲国家的代表权，同时削弱了其他国家的地位。安理会已不再是一个常年会议，而是变成了半永久性的地位，每年举行三届会议，总会期至少为十个星期。正如提斯托涅（Tistounet）在理事会成立十周年时所说，它的运作就像是一场戏剧活动，带有信息，观众和背景，因此“我们已经从具有适当间歇性的短剧变成了不停顿的长歌剧”。^2个

理事会设立了几个调查委员会，作为独立的事实调查机构，以调查严重侵犯人权的行为，包括危害人类罪，并确定肇事者以追究其责任。Tistounet审查了成立于2011年并仍然存在的叙利亚问题委员会，作为安理会多层面进程的众多例子之一。

通过在特定国家举行关于人权危机的特别会议和紧急辩论的可能性，加强了人权理事会在迅速应对人权紧急情况方面的作用。仅在叙利亚，就在2011年，2012年和2016年举行了特别会议。这些会议暴露了各方在其中犯下的战争罪行的模式...