U.N. Delays Action on Rights Council Opposed by U.S. 
By Warren Hoge
March 11, 2006
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/11/international/11nations.html

UNITED NATIONS, March 10 — The United Nations on Friday extended by a week its deadline for seeking approval of a new human rights council that is opposed by the United States but backed by rights groups and a vast majority of the 191 member states.
Simultaneously, the Human Rights Commission, which the council is supposed to replace, agreed to postpone by a week the opening of its annual session that was to start Monday in Geneva.
The actions came after human rights organizations had mounted a lobbying effort in support of the proposed council, and the European Union had sent Washington a pledge that its members would keep objectionable candidates off the panel.
The commission has long been an embarrassment to the United Nations because its members included some of the world's most notorious rights violators. 
The council was proposed a year ago by Secretary General Kofi Annan with terms that would bar membership to rights abusers, but in the version that emerged this month after long negotiations, those guarantees were watered down.
While a number of countries expressed disappointment, the United States was the only one to say that it would call for a vote and vote no.
John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, said the measure should be renegotiated, but Jan Eliasson of Sweden, the General Assembly president, said that reopening the delicately balanced text would expose it to a Pandora's box of amendments from opponents and effectively doom the whole project.
Gerhard Pfanzelter, the ambassador from Austria, which occupies the European Union presidency, said the European effort could calm American concerns. He said the number of countries joining the Europeans in pledging to ban abusers from membership could end up approaching the 96 that would be needed to approve candidates for the panel.
Mr. Eliasson has sought to avoid a vote and, instead, to gain adoption by consensus, with countries making any individual views known in explanatory remarks afterward. 
Asked about the assurances being offered by the Europeans and other allies, Mr. Bolton said the American position had not changed. If you want to fix the text, fix the text, he said. My instructions are clear.