No Remedy to Cholera in Haiti: How the UN Undermines Human Rights

Abstract

Abstract UN Peacekeepers stationed on the banks of Haiti’s largest river, the Artibonite, unleashed a cholera epidemic upon the country ten years ago, but the almost one million people affected still have not seen justice. This, despite the mobilization of grassroots organizations, human rights professionals, students, journalists and independent experts in international human rights law. This article aims to articulate rights violations in the Haiti cholera case, discuss the lack of accountability, and analyse efforts by advocates to overcome obstacles to justice through a multi-faceted intervention involving the UN Special Procedures system. Human rights-based approaches to UN accountability coupled with analyses of the UN’s organizational immunity foreground the continued lack of remedy for the victims of cholera, which is a violation of their human rights attributable to the UN. In conducting public advocacy and investigating the issue of UN responsibility for cholera in Haiti, UN Special Rapporteurs like Philip Alston also relied on a human-rights based approach that built some public pressure for accountability. While advocates continue to push for accountability after a 10-year epidemic, and accountability is possible, the as-yet unsatisfactory resolution to the Haiti cholera case points to a need for UN reform to create more local, democratic structures of governance that are responsive to human rights obligations, in the face of considerable political, economic and social forces in Haiti and internationally that weigh against accountability.