Pamela Taylor/InfoSud - It may be an unlikely partnership but diplomats and human rights advocates meeting in Geneva believe that two recent events may have paved the way toward a compromise on this issue which is seen as critical for the HR Council’s credibility.

In recent years the gulf has widened in the Council on attitudes towards free speech which the West sees as absolute while Islamic governments would like to restrict speech that incites racial or religious hatred.

But in April, at the Geneva conference on racism, known as Durban 2009, a ground-breaking compromise was reached when Islamic countries sought to insert defamation of religion into the anti-racism agenda. The final conference document noted that racism can best be combated by reinforcing freedom of expression. At the same time it denounced incitement to racial hatred. The document, which was largely brokered by a Russian, is seen by many as a precedent for the West and Islamic States finding ways to work together.

Then later in June, US President Barak Obama made a speech in Cairo directly addressing the concerns of Muslim nations. After that speech, a whirl of high level meetings took place in Cairo, Washington and elsewhere on a range of issues of concern to the Middle East, including freedom of expression which is a paramount matter for the West.

During her visit to Geneva last week as the first US representative to the Human Rights Council, Esther Brimmer, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, stressed this point. “There is a fundamental core element that the idea of freedom of expression - as a fundamental human right - is very important.”

Speaking to reporters, she confirmed that the US and Egypt will present their resolution for adoption by consensus. “As we look toward resolutions in the upcoming Council, I would think that Freedom of Expression would be one in which there would hopefully be consensus. We realize there has been a long history of addressing these issues.”

For his part, Egyptian Ambassador, Hisham Badr, who represents the OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference) countries, told InfoSud that “the joint US-Egypt resolution is key to achieving balance on the issue of incitement that erupted in the world after September 11. We are trying to build a consensus by combining the concerns of freedom of expression advocates and making sure that incitement issues are not ignored.”

According to Jeremie Smith of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) in Geneva, “the concept Muslim nations refer to as ‘incitement’ has apparently replaced ‘defamation’ as the new sticking point. The West and especially the US would prefer to deal with incitement through existing legal mechanisms but these vary from country to country.”

Peter Splinter of Amnesty International agrees that the stumbling block may be a legalistic one. “There is apparently disagreement on this even among EU states at the Council, where Germany and other countries have laws against hate speech for example. But everyone is still working on the 2005 draft document which essentially condemns the ‘act’ of inciting hatred and not the ‘speech’ of advocating it.”

George Gordon-Lennox of the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), was as surprised as anyone by the new resolution and its sponsors. “Normally the routine approach is that this resolution would come up next year when the Special Rapporteur (on Freedom of Expression) presents his report. It’s interesting that the resolution is on the agenda now – just when United States is in the Council.”

Gordon-Lennox, who has seen a draft of the proposed resolution is also heartened by the fact that it asks the Special Rapporteur to report to the UN General Assembly. “That puts freedom of expression higher on the agenda for the UN and that is very important.”