Christine Chanet (born 23 February 1944 in Paris) is a French lawyer and judge who is a long-term member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, serving as its chairperson in 1997-98 and 2005–06.
She is a member of the Committee against Torture, has been the Personal Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for examining the situation in Cuba, and belongs to the Working Group for the Application of the Bangalore Principles on Judicial Independence.
[3] She has chaired the committee in charge of reviewing criminal law decisions following the delivery of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.
[5] In 2006, Chanet complained about the insufficient deference given to the UNHRC by the U.S. “You can't deny the role given to us by treaty," she maintained at a briefing, describing the U.S. as being “in a situation of isolation over its unilateral interpretation of international treaty law.”[6] In her capacity as chair of the UNHRC, Chanet participated at the March 2007 Vienna meeting of the Intergovernmental Group of Experts, convened at the request of ECOSOC, that examined and agreed upon the text of the Commentary on the Bangalore Principles.
In the guise of human rights, Syria and other oppressive regimes sponsored this UN inquiry to deflect attention from their own crimes, to scapegoat Israel and erode its international standing.”[9] Chanet also headed a UNHRC Fact-Finding Mission on Israeli Settlements, and claimed in a November 2012 statement that she considers the West Bank “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”[10] UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer complained that the UNHRC had “ordered five one-sided commissions of inquiry against Israel, yet created none for victims of mass killings in Iran, North Korea, China, Congo, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and many other repressive regimes.”[11] In July 2012 the Anti-Defamation League publicly doubted “the impartiality of the three individuals chosen by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to head up its fact-finding mission tasked with investigating Israeli settlements,” noting that Chanet had “strongly criticized Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza.” By contrast, Al-Haq described Chanet's mission as an “important step towards thoroughly investigating Israel’s violations of the rights of the Palestinian people.”[12] On January 31, 2013, the Fact-Finding Mission issued its preliminary findings, concluding that Israel's “creeping annexation” of territory violated Palestinian human rights.