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-OCTOBER, 1998-
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10/05/1998 China signs human rights accord at United Nations

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China signs human rights accord at United Nations

01:18 PM ET 10/05/98

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - China signed Monday an important international convention on civil and political rights that guarantees freedom of expression, a fair trial and protection against torture and arbitrary arrests.

"To realize human rights is the aspiration of all human nature," said Beijing's U.N. ambassador Qin Huasun after he signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

"It is also a goal that the Chinese government has been striving for." he said.

But he said China believed that the universality of human rights could be better reflected if it was "combined with the specific conditions of various countries."

He said that a basis for individual rights was the "right to existence and the right to development" and that China had now "basically solved the problem of the feeding and the clothing" of its 1.2 billion citizens by its own efforts.

Qin, who said China had signed 17 human rights treaties, took the opportunity to declare that nationalist China's October 1967 signature of the treaty was "illegal and null and void."

Taiwan represented China at the United Nations until it was replaced by Beijing in 1971.

The convention, which first went first into effect in 1976 and has been ratified by 140 nations, provides for freedom of movement, equality before the law, presumption of innocence, freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and participation in public affairs and elections.

Mary Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, during a visit to China last month, welcomed Beijing's intention to sign the covenant but said it would take more than "just words" to prevent the rights abuses.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch group urged Beijing to ratify the treaty quickly and fully implement its provisions.

"Since China is currently in violation of almost every article of the covenant, we hope its decision to sign indicates a change in human rights practices," it said.

Sidney Jones, executive director of the body's Asia division, said China's promise earlier this year to sign the treaty brought "international silence on its human rights practices."

"Signing could still be the right move for the wrong reasons but only if we see tangible human rights improvements," Human Rights Watch said.

China's promise to sign the covenant, first announced in January and then confirmed in March, was widely seen as a trade-off for U.S. agreement not to sponsor a resolution this year condemning China at the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

Beijing a year ago signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which also went into effect in 1976 and was less controversial than the one it signed Monday. But it has not ratified that treaty yet.

From Reuters

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