The U.N. Human Rights Council, since its inception in 2006, has called for restrictions on free speech and ignored blatant human rights abuses in a host of countries. It has passed five separate resolutions condemning Israel -- more resolutions than the total number it passed against all of the other 191 U.N. member states combined.
It counts among its members consistent human rights violators as China, Cuba, Egypt, Libya and Saudi Arabia.
And now the United States wants to become one of the organization's 47 members.
The Obama administration claims it can reform the "rights" body from the inside out. In a statement Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said the administration will join the council to help make it more effective as part of President Obama's desire to create a "new era of engagement" with the international community.
"Human rights are an essential element of American global foreign policy," Clinton said. "With others, we will engage in the work of improving the U.N. human rights system to advance the vision of the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights."
Susan Rice that year said that the US would join the HRC to battle "the anti-Israel crap."
So from 2006 to 2009, the UNHRC passed five resolutions condemning Israel. How has it done since the US has chosen to reform it from within?
Last year it passed six anti-Israel resolutions This year it passed five more.
It doesn't look like this administration's plan to reform the UNHRC is working too well, does it?
From CNSNews:
The Obama administration should walk away from the U.N. Human Rights Council, House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) said Thursday after the body adopted a fresh batch of resolutions critical of Israel.
Wrapping up a month-long session in Geneva, the U.N.’s top human rights body passed one resolution condemning North Korea, two condemning Syria – and five condemning Israel. (Another resolution, relating to Burma, contained mildly critical elements.)
“Instead of running for re-election to the council, the U.S. should finally leave that rogues’ gallery and seek credible alternative forums to advance human rights,” Ros-Lehtinen said Thursday, after the HRC adopted the five Israel-related resolutions.
The council remained “as anti-Israel as ever,” she said.
“Any limited, tactical gains made by U.S. engagement at the council are outweighed by the harm done through granting legitimacy to the fundamentally illegitimate body,” Ros-Lehtinen argued. “The fact is that, with or without the U.S., the UNHRC remains dominated by rogue regimes who protect human rights abusers and target free democracies like Israel.”