By Altaf Hussain Wani
The UN Special Procedures system was established as the normative conscience of the international community—an independent mechanism tasked with scrutinising the darkest sites of state repression and articulating truths that governments prefer to conceal. In principle, states are obligated to fully cooperate with mandate holders, ensure unimpeded access, safeguard all individuals who engage with them, and act on their recommendations. In practice, however, this architecture has deteriorated into a performative arena in which states simulate compliance while orchestrating sophisticated campaigns of intimidation, denigration, and direct reprisals against the very experts responsible for ensuring accountability.
The intimidation begins even before rapporteurs reach the field. Richard Falk, former Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, learned this when Canadian authorities detained and interrogated him at Toronto’s Pearson Airport in November 2025, declaring him “persona non grata” for his criticism of Israeli policies. His wife, who was traveling with him, faced similar harassment. Both international law scholars were en route to Ottawa to participate in the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility, an event organized to examine Canada’s potential complicity in Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The message was clear: even UN mandates offer no shield against state power when geopolitical interests are at stake. More recently, Francesca Albanese, the current Special Rapporteur on Palestine, has endured a coordinated vilification campaign. Israeli officials have labelled her “antisemitic,” US lawmakers have demanded her dismissal, and pro-government media outlets have published her personal details. This isn’t random hostility—it’s a calculated strategy to delegitimize the office itself, ensuring that any future findings on occupation and apartheid can be dismissed as “biased” before they’re even read.
States like India have mastered the use of domestic law as both sword and shield. Although international law should supersede national legislation, perpetrators hide behind sovereignty and constitutional clauses. India’s Armed Forces Special Powers Act is a prime example, granting security forces immunity for actions taken “in good faith,” a phrase that enables extrajudicial killings, torture, and disappearances. When UN experts condemn such laws, states cite “national security” or “cultural specificity,” creating a perverse hierarchy where the Universal Declaration becomes subordinate to impunity-driven criminal codes.
India’s treatment of UN rapporteurs exposes a clear playbook of retaliation. In 2012, Christof Heyns, the late Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, visited India and concluded that AFSPA had “no place in a democracy,” documenting a pervasive “culture of impunity” in conflict zones. Rather than reform, India responded with denial and targeted harassment of local activists who had engaged with him. Similarly, Margaret Sekaggya, former Rapporteur on human rights defenders, faced stonewalling during her 2011 mission. After reporting that defenders were “stigmatized as anti-national or pro-Naxal,” India ignored its 27 recommendations and tightened the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act to restrict civil society funding. Asma Jahangir, former Rapporteur on freedom of religion, was accused of “interfering in internal affairs” after exposing attacks on minorities and misuse of anti-terror laws, showing a consistent pattern of discrediting UN experts.
This pattern of reprisal against mandate-holders creates a chilling effect that cascades downward. If a Special Rapporteur—selected by the UN Human Rights Council and armed with diplomatic credentials—can be vilified, denied entry, and threatened, what chance does a local Kashmiri activist have? When Heyns was ignored, it sent a signal: international scrutiny carries no consequences. When Sekaggya’s recommendations were shelved, it emboldened security agencies to intensify their crackdown on Kashmiri human rights defenders like Khurram Parvez, who has been detained under terrorism charges for documenting abuses. This assault on documentation extends beyond individual activists to the very institutions that preserve evidence for future accountability. The recent raid on the Kashmir Times Jammu office and the systematic targeting of its editor Anuradha Bhasin exemplify this strategy. For decades, Bhasin and her newspaper have meticulously chronicled human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir, creating an archival record that counters official narratives of denial. The raid—conducted under vague pretexts—was not merely retaliation for her journalism but a deliberate attempt to seize and suppress historical documentation. This targeting of Kashmir Times is more than personal vendetta; it is an effort to erase the institutional memory of repression, ensuring that future chroniclers and international investigators find no paper trail. Bhasin’s perseverance in continuing to publish despite surveillance, financial strangulation, and legal harassment represents precisely the kind of courage that states seek to extinguish.
On November 5 over a dozen human rights special rapporteur have sent communications to government of India for miss using counter terrorism laws and destroying houses and causing collective punishment to Kashmiri Muslims. When the UN’s own experts are ignored, it emboldens such attacks on those who provide them with the very information needed to document abuses.
The UN’s inability to protect its own experts extends to its failure to protect those who cooperate with them. Defenders find themselves doubly exposed—targeted by state machinery for their work and abandoned by the international system that promised them protection.
The problem is systemic and global. Thematic rapporteurs on torture, arbitrary detention, and freedom of expression have issued countless urgent appeals, only to be met with silence or mockery. Myanmar’s junta has ignored 15 consecutive requests from the Special Rapporteur while continuing to bomb civilian villages. This is not a system failure but a design. The Human Rights Council includes some of the worst abusers, protected through bloc voting and non-interference. The Special Procedures’ budget is a rounding error, leaving no investigative capacity. States ignore recommendations because there is no cost—no sanctions, suspensions, or arrest warrants for reprisals.
The moral bankruptcy is complete. Two comprehensive UN reports on Jammu and Kashmir exposed the reality, yet India responded by demonizing the Office of the High Commissioner and targeting the High Commissioner personally. This reaction becomes even more alarming when we recognize how the UN’s human rights architecture now functions as a sophisticated excuse for inaction. States showcase “cooperation” with Special Procedures while dismantling civil society and protecting perpetrators. They claim to respect mandates even as their proxies harass rapporteurs’ families. They vote for rights-based resolutions in Geneva while arresting anyone who attempts to implement those rights at home.
what is happening to Francesca Albanese through state-sponsored smear campaigns, and what happened to Heyns, Sekaggya, and Jahangir in India are not anomalies. They are the predictable outcomes of a system where power answers only to itself. Until real consequences exist for states that intimidate UN experts—automatic suspension from the Human Rights Council, targeted sanctions on officials behind reprisals, mandatory referral to the International Court of Justice for systematic non-compliance—the Special Procedures will remain a performative ritual of institutionalized hypocrisy. And Kashmiri defenders, like those in Palestine and Myanmar and countless other conflict zones, will continue to pay the price.
The writer is Chairman Kashmir Institute of International Relations and can be reached at; saleeemwani@hotmail.com and on X @sultan1913