UN Calls Out Saudi Arabian Child Executions
A UN commission has recently issued an order to Saudi Arabia to end its practice of stoning children, among other human rights violations. The Committee on the Rights of the Childcharged Saudi Arabia to cease rampant discrimination of girls and harsh penalties towards children, which include stoning, amputation, flogging, and execution. Children over the age of fifteen in Saudi Arabia aretried as adults and can face punishments ranging from torture to the death penalty. In January of this year, a mass execution of 47 people included four youths under the age of 18. The panel of 18 human rights analysts making up the Committee alsocriticized Saudi Arabian airstrikes in Yemen and accused its military of using starvation as a war tactic.
Saudi Arabia has a long record when it comes to human rights violations. The Saudi Arabian monarchy established by Abdul Aziz ibn Saud in 1932 instituted an absolute monarchy informed by the hyper conservativeWahhabi school of Islam. This system has largely stood in place since its inception, albeit withsome limited reforms. The monarchy’s radically conservative view of Islam parallels a harsh legal system. Saudi Arabia followsSharia law like many other Islamic nations, but applies, in the words of the Council of Foreign Relations, “one of the strictest interpretations of Sharia.”
This severe approach to Sharia law, in tandem with the strength of the monarchy, results in repressive governance. In its 2015-2016 report on Saudi Arabia, Amnesty Internationalhighlighted the use of mass execution, arrests of political opposition, torture, discrimination of women and the Shi’a Muslim minority, and cruel punishment such as public lashings. Additionally, Freedom House, an American human rights NGO active since 1941 which ranks political freedoms and civil liberties on a 1 to 7 scale (1 being the “most free”), has never awarded Saudi Arabia a score below 6 on any metric.
By and large, the international community has failed to challenge Saudi Arabia on its domestic abuse record. While human rights groups have remained critical of Saudi Arabia, little progress has come from their efforts to call out Saudi Arabian injustice. In fact, Saudi Arabia wasselected to lead a major UN human rights panel in September 2015. Ironically, this is the same year that the countrysentenced a political blogger to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes.
Saudi UN Ambassador, Faisal Trad, was appointed the head of a UN human rights panel.
Weak enforcement and loopholes in UN statutes have allowed Saudi Arabia to avoid consequences in international law. Saudi Arabia does ratify UN conventions, but it categorically ignores many stipulations of these conventions. It maintains the legal ability to do this throughloopholes known as “reservations, understandings, and declarations” or RUDs, which allow for states to evade parts of legally binding obligations that may conflict with their own law.
The Council of Foreign Relationsexplains that, for example, one RUD states that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women is not applicable whenever it conflicts with Sharia law. This allows Saudi Arabia to continue its infringement on women’s rights, including arange of discriminatory policies from forced gender segregation in public spaces to bans on female driving.
Economic incentives serve as another barrier to human rights accountability. Saudi Arabia is the leading oil producer of the Organization for Petroleum Exporting States (OPEC), whichcontrols about 40 percent of the world’s oil. Global reliance on oil gives Saudi Arabia leverage in the international community and reduces the incentive to punish the kingdom for its injustices.
Saudi Arabia continues to make headlines for both its domestic human rights abuses and aggressive foreign policy, especially with its currentmilitary action in Yemen. Current legal and economic conditions make it unlikely, though, that such headlines will translate into disciplinary action against the kingdom.