O Alto comissário das Nações Unidas para os Direitos Humanos e seu escritório: criação e desenvolvimento institucional (1994-2014)

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the post of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) and its Office (OHCHR). The purpose is to reconstruct the political process leading to the creation and institutional development of the organization in the period from 1994-2014, in order to demonstrate how the UNHCHR/OHCHR was formed and has been maintained as a practically unavoidable international actor in the field of human rights. The central argument of the thesis is that the UNHCHR/OHCHR, a body of the UN Secretariat established in 1993, is an international human rights organization endowed with political agency. This agency is derived from the fact that the mandate of the UNHCHR was consensually approved by Member States in the General Assembly of 1993, the bureaucratic status of its Office, its unique institutional position and the international legitimacy achieved by human rights in the post-Cold War period. This argument was developed from a theoretical reflection that identifies an analytical gap in the few studies that exist on the UNHCHR/OHCHR; it locates the main theoretical currents of the field of international organizations, indicating the occurrence of a majority trend towards broader focuses at the expense of formal international organizations; and it systematizes the assumptions that underpin a large part of the production on human rights in international relations, identifying the lack of studies on the UNHCHR/OHCHR in this production. After exposing these characteristics, this thesis proposes a constructivist approach that does not link the validity of international norms and the agency of international organizations to the need to promote a change of behavior by other actors, and it is based on the assumption that the UNHCHR/OHCHR is a bureaucracy. Using this approach, this thesis, which draws on documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews with diplomats, activists and employees from the OHCHR, organizes its discussion into four parts. Initially, it analyzes the attempts to create the UNHCHR during the Cold War, emphasizing the changes in the form of the proposal over the years and the political tensions that prevented its approval. The complex process of negotiating the consensual approval of the proposal in the post-Cold War period, which extended from the preparation of the Vienna Conference to the General Assembly of 1993, is the focus of the second part. Next, it presents the mandate, the structure, the development of material resources and personnel, the profile of the mandate-holders and an overview of their mandates, demonstrating an institutional strengthening trend over the course of its twenty years of existence. These discussions provide the foundations for an analysis of the development of the UNHCHR/OHCHR as a politically relevant international actor in the field of human rights. This analysis is conducted based on an identification of the organization’s lasting courses of action. From here, it explains the political tensions unleashed by the UNHCHR/OHCHR and the disputes surrounding the orientation of its mandate over the course of its institutional development. The inclusion enabled by its bureaucratic status, the tensions created by its public voice, the work it has conducted in niches outside its original mandate and the attempts by States to control its activities are identified in this thesis as strong indications of the institution’s political agency.