UN Human Rights Council

Another lame council from the UN. Shock.

The draft aims to create a body to replace the current Human Rights Commission, flawed because it allows countries that violate human rights - like Cuba and Sudan - onto the panel. The new council is a lynch-pin to moving ahead with UN reform, and was intended to be in place by next month.

But the proposal falls short of standards set by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the US and several Western nations, who wanted to require a two-thirds majority for admission, and who wanted more clear standards for measuring whether countries are upholding the highest human rights standards.

Instead, the draft requires only a simple majority for admission, and makes it more difficult to eject someone from the council for human rights violations by requiring a two-thirds majority. It also fails to specify how a country's human rights performance would be measured.

Bolton last week rejected the draft, while Annan expressed disappointment but decided to go along with it.

Why would you make a council that is easy to get onto and difficult to get off of? (Other than allowing the dictatorial regimes an easier entry into the council thus watering down its usefulness.) That is completely backwards. Of course having no method to measure human rights performance makes this another feel-good group.

But Annan is calling for the US to support this half-assed council.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on the United States to give rapid backing to plans to set up a human rights council, while admitting the plan was not perfect. The councils aimed at replacing the largely-discredited UN Human Rights Commission, tarnished by the presence on it of states with bad rights records.

The council doesn't have to be perfect, but reasonable would be a nice start.

"We are a country that puts high value on human rights. We wouldn't vote in favor if we weren't sure it was going to be an improvement," said Chile's U.N. ambassador, Heraldo Munoz, a former dissident who was jailed under former Chilean ruler Augusto Pinochet.

I'm fascinated by people who only want to fix things part way. Especially those that yell loudest about human rights. Amnesty International and Jimmy Carter like this so it must be good. The problem is that this isn't even adequate. What happens when you do have a member that is obviously off the edge on human rights, but you can't get the super-majority to get them off the council? I'll tell you. Nothing. Then you have a council that is meaningless.

How is it that so many countries state that they want the UN to be effective, but they continually emplace councils that are heavily flawed and ineffective? With councils like this there is the continuation of the view that the UN is still following the wrong path.

Complete waste of time.