The human-rights charade at the United Nations goes on
By Kevin Ferris
July 20, 2007
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Original Source: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/kevin_ferris/8619167.html

'We represent the conscience of humanity. 
That would be the perfect mission statement for a human-rights organization.
Chisel it in stone above the dais where the group gathers.
Members can speak in the words' august shadow, forever reminded of a need to represent those who endure oppression and torture, who fall victim to brutality and murder.
Yet when those words actually were spoken before a human-rights group last year, they inspired no one.
That's because, in a cruel, Orwellian twist, they were uttered on behalf of Sudan, where ethnic cleansing, religious persecution, slavery and genocide have killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.
A Sudanese representative made the remarks to the United Nations Human Rights Council, which last month celebrated its first anniversary.
Amid much fanfare about reform at the United Nations, the council replaced the U.N. Human Rights Commission, which was widely regarded as a den of dictators, terrorism sponsors and rights abusers interested in hiding their own crimes and singling out Israel for condemnation.
After a year, what's changed?
Only the name.
The dictators, terrorism sponsors and rights abusers remain. Israel is still the only country singled out for condemnation.
No one anticipated that within one year it would be possible to gut the intended agenda of the council and make a mockery of its stated purpose on the scale that the Human Rights Council has managed to do, says U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman (R., Minn.).
Coleman is sponsoring a bill to ensure that the council gets no part of any U.S. funds sent to the United Nations, at least for the next two years.
His criticisms are echoed in recent reports by human-rights organizations such as UN Watch and Freedom House:
Of the 12 country-specific resolutions the council passed in the last year, nine condemned Israel. The council pretends this is out of concern for the rights of Palestinians, yet it is silent when Hamas slaughters innocents in Gaza.
Three of the year's resolutions raised concerns about Sudan, but there was no condemnation of the genocide there.
The 190 other countries in the world? Based on the council's work, all must be doing well on the human-rights front.
The council also passed an antidefamation resolution, urging states to complement legal systems with intellectual and moral strategies to combat religious hatred and intolerance.
This was a way to express solidarity with violent protests denouncing the publication of so-called anti-Muslim cartoons in a Danish newspaper last year.
And last month, when unflattering reports targeted council member Cuba and Belarus, which wanted to join the club, an embarrassing moment was easily resolved by the firing of human-rights monitors for those two nations.
The U.N. can't say it wasn't warned. When John Bolton was U.S. ambassador to the world body and insisted on creating standards for council membership, he was accused of undermining reform and not being diplomatic.
We want a butterfly, Bolton said. We're not going to put lipstick on a caterpillar and declare it a success.
About a fourth of this caterpillar consists of the likes of Saudi Arabia, Angola and China. However, the vast majority of member nations are democracies.
Unfortunately, says Amanda Abrams of Freedom House, the democracies don't work together, and are more likely to put regional or political interests over human-rights considerations when it comes time to vote.
So the Islamic Conference can team up with the Africa and Asia groups, as well as with China and Russia, and form their own majority.
They're much better than the democracies at organizing and maneuvering, Abrams says.
The United States has refused to join this faux Human Rights Council, but it has worked successfully behind the scenes, according to Abrams. She worries that a funding cut might curtail that effectiveness, but understands the disappointment that motivates Coleman.
If the council doesn't improve, Abrams says, At some point, we at Freedom House will walk away and encourage the U.S. to do the same.
When they go, they can say: We represent the conscience of humanity.