Manama chosen to host human rights court

The selection of Bahrain as host of the permanent headquarters of the Arab Court for Human Rights has inevitably attracted considerable attention. Arab foreign ministers approved the choice of Manama at a meeting of the Arab League in Cairo on 1 September; while it is not clear exactly what the court’s jurisdiction will be, its host’s poor human rights record makes it a questionable choice. On 3 September, the main opposition party Al-Wefaq described Bahrain as being a “black hole” of human rights, and said that hosting the court would be wholly inappropriate; its criticism was in sharp contrast to a stream of articles on the state Bahrain News Agency, where the choice prompted elaborate congratulations and praise.