Land: New U.N. council like fox guarding hen house

By Tom Strode - Mar 15, 2006

ERLC President Richard Land joined other American advocates for human rights in criticizing a new body established by the United Nations to address the issue.

The U.N. approved in a 170-4 vote March 15 the creation of the Human Rights Council as a replacement for the often justly maligned Commission on Human Rights based in Geneva, Switzerland. The United States was one of the members to oppose the resolution establishing the 47-member council.

After the vote, John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said the new body is an improvement over its predecessor but still made it too easy for countries with poor human rights records to become members of the council. Nevertheless, Bolton said the United States would cooperate with other U.N. members in an effort “to make the council as strong and effective as it can be.”

Land and Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J., expressed great disappointment with the U.N. action.

“The creation of this new human rights council tragically shows that the United Nations is not interested in reform, merely in the appearance of reform,” Land said. “Instead of championing human rights, which is so needed in the world today, we have a new U.N. monstrosity that reminds any objective observer of nothing quite as much as allowing the fox to guard the hen house, which merely produces fewer hens and fatter foxes.”

Smith, chairman of a human rights subcommittee in the House of Representatives, described the new council as a “weak and deeply flawed replacement. To call what the U.N. did today ‘reform’ is Orwellian. The hypocrisy and gross ineffectiveness that was the hallmark of the former commission will likely continue unless the American position in favor of sweeping reform is enacted.”

In addition to making it too easy for human rights violators to gain seats on the council, the resolution weakens the influence of the United States and other human rights advocates and does not protect Israel from the injustices that marked the Commission on Human Rights, Smith said.

Among the current members of the Commission on Human Rights are such notorious human rights violators as China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.

In addition to the United States, also voting against the resolution were Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau.

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