A caterpillar with lipstick
February 26, 2006
The Chicago Tribune
Original Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0602260384feb26,0,3352442.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed



The United Nations Human Rights Commission demonstrated again this week why it is in dire need of a drastic overhaul. Instead of focusing on egregious human-rights abuses in Cuba (a current panel member) or slaughter in Sudan (another member), the panel got lathered up about detention practices at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects.

Suffice to say, the commission's been a worldwide embarrassment for years. And it seemed that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recognized that embarrassment. With a push from the U.S., he has been talking for months about serious reform.

On Thursday, the UN unveiled its proposal to create a new human-rights panel. It's underwhelming.

Here's the UN's idea of bold reform: The old commission had 53 members, the new one would have 47. (The U.S. wanted half that number.) And forget about efforts to make it difficult for notorious human-rights abusers to join. With its mandatory geographical distribution of seats, the proposal could virtually guarantee spots to abusers.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton offered this analysis: Based on conversations we've had with other governments, the strongest argument in favor of this draft is that it is not as bad as it could be. Several weeks ago, Bolton warned about fake reform. We want a butterfly, he said. We're not going to put lipstick on a caterpillar and declare it a success.

Looks like we have a caterpillar.