The Role of the International Community—IGOs and NGOs 373Beginning in 2006, the UN Human Rights Council initiated a new approach,
the Universal Periodic Review, wherein every member state participates in evaluating
the strengths and weaknesses of its own human rights rec ord every four years. Based
on that assessment, other states make recommendations, such as calling for the state to
request assistance in a par tic u lar area, offering new approaches, suggesting that the state
share its best practices with others, or even taking specific actions. For example, both
Cuba and Burkina Faso have been pressured to abolish the death penalty. Recent data
suggests that almost two- thirds of recommendations have been accepted; states recog-
nize that reform “must be largely evolutionary, rather than revolutionary.”^7
The third area in which IGOs have operated is in taking mea sures to promote human
rights and improve levels of state compliance. In the UN system, that responsibility
rests with the coordinating office and person of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights. Among the most vis i ble of those promotional activities is ensuring fair elec-
tions. For example, since 1992, the United Nations has provided electoral assistance—
election monitors, technical assistance—in over 100 countries. The role of the UN
varies, from certifying the electoral pro cess in Côte d’Ivoire in 2010, to providing expert
monitoring, sometimes sharing that responsibility with states as in Af ghan i stan in 2004
and 2005 and in the Republic of South Sudan in 2011. In 2014, the UN oversaw the
counting of votes in the contested Af ghan i stan election. While not eliminating cheating
and fraud, states gain legitimacy by having external monitors, often UN and other IGO
monitors. Enforcement actions by IGOs for human rights violations are also a possibility,
but rare. In the case of apartheid— legalized racial discrimination against the majority
black population in South Africa and a comparable policy in Southern Rhodesia (now
Zimbabwe)— the international community took coercive economic mea sures. But, as
Chapter 5 discussed, the South African government did not immediately change its
human rights policy, nor was the government immediately ousted from power.
In a few cases, enforcement action may involve the use of military force. In the case of
the humanitarian emergency in northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, as well as in reac-
tion to the crises in Somalia in 1992, Bosnia in the mid-1990s, and Libya in 2011, the
UN Security Council explic itly linked human rights violations to security threats and
undertook enforcement action without the consent of the states concerned. Yet the cases
where IGOs intervene are few. Many states are suspicious of strengthening international
organ izations’ power to intervene in what they still regard as their domestic jurisdiction.
ngos’ Unique roles
NGOs have been particularly vocal and sometimes very effective in the area of human
rights. Of the hundreds of human rights organ izations with interests that cross national
borders, a core group has been the most vocal and attracted the most attention, including
Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW). These organ izations