U.S., Allies: U.N. Rights Body Too Focused on Israel

By Benny Avni 
November 7, 2007
The New York Sun
Original source: http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=65993&v=1824444911

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Human Rights Council is up for review at the U.N. General Assembly, and America, Israel, and some of their supporters say they are unhappy with the Geneva-based body's almost complete lack of attention to violations not committed by Israel.

The General Assembly this week was preparing to rubber-stamp the mandate of the year-old Human Rights Council by passing a consensus-based agreement, but Israel, a constant target of the council, has called for a vote, expected to take place tomorrow.

I felt it was time to go beyond technicalities and actually appeal to my colleagues, who I believe feel very much the same way but are saying to themselves, 'Who cares?' and 'What does it matter?' as we so often say in this building, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, told reporters yesterday.

The assembly resolution is still all but sure to pass, but in lieu of a consensus, countries such as America, which has refused to join the council, and Canada, which has been critical of its apparent inability to focus on anything other than Israel, will now have an opportunity to voice their dissatisfaction. In June, Congress passed a symbolic amendment to the American budget forbidding any American funds to go to the council. In September, a similar amendment passed the Senate.

America declined to join the council when it was formed, and it is not expected to change its position soon. We remain concerned that some appear more determined to use the council to defend abusive governments than to protect the victims of human rights violations, an American deputy representative to the United Nations, Robert Hagen, told members of the assembly's Committee on Human Rights Issues yesterday.

America is concerned about the council's relentless focus on Israel, its recent elimination of organs aimed at monitoring violations in Belarus and Cuba, and its reluctance to address principal violators and violations of human rights, Mr. Hagen said.


Created in 2006, the council was designed to replace the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission. In his memoir, published this week, the American ambassador to the United Nations at the time, John Bolton, called the proposed reform of the commission so bad that Annan and Jimmy Carter quickly endorsed it.

The council is no better, and in some respects worse than the commission because under the new body, Western countries do not have their previous voting powers, Mr. Gillerman said.

Secretary-General Ban said yesterday that he was aware of the concerns but that the council has made good progress, particularly adopting and introducing the Universal Periodic Review, under which rights conditions in every U.N. member state are examined every four years. But that review, as Mr. Hagen noted yesterday, is not designed to respond to emergencies such as Darfur or Burma. The new proposal to renew the council's mandate puts on its agenda two items to address violations beyond the periodic review. One will deal with human rights situations around the world, and the other will address exclusively the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied territories.