U.S. May Find Lonely Place on U.N. Human Rights Council

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**Frazzled**

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/11/lonely-place-human-rights-council-1737855270/

U.S. May Find Lonely Place on U.N. Human Rights Council
Human rights advocates say the U.S. may not gain much traction when it joins the U.N. Human Rights Council, which includes some of the world's most brutal violators of the very rights it is meant to protect.
By Joseph Abrams

What do Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia and the United States have in common? On May 12, the United Nations General Assembly votes on whether those nations and 15 others get seats on the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The 47-member council was shunned by President Bush because it includes some of the world's most repressive regimes and brutal violators of the very rights it is meant to protect.

But after three years of American absence, President Obama now hopes to confront those regimes -- using a seat on the council to press for human rights investigations in hotspots like Darfur and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Human rights organizations have hailed the U.S. decision to rejoin the council, but critics say America can do little in the U.N. venue and should not join at all.

"U.S. membership, or the membership of any other single state, is not going to make the council effective," said Brett Schaefer, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Schaefer and many rights watchdogs fault the council for doing work that has often been detrimental to human rights around the world. It has passed resolutions banning free speech, spent most of its energy producing condemnations of Israel, and eliminated human rights oversight in Congo, Cuba, Belarus and Darfur.

"It's been an incredible disappointment in its first three years," said Schaefer. "The Human Rights Council was established in 2006 because its predecessor was deemed to be ineffective and an embarrassment," he said, arguing that the council has repeated every mistake of the much-derided Human Rights Commission, which met from 1946-2006.

Yet some human rights groups see the American absence from the council as harmful and think that its many systemic problems can be addressed only if the U.S. is a member.

Paula Schriefer, director of advocacy for Freedom House, hopes to see incremental changes from the Geneva-based council with help from the U.S.

"It's all of the behind-the-scenes work that will determine whether the council can be turned around," she said, adding that the U.S. must lobby its allies on the council to stop defending despots and help back strong resolutions condemning rights violations.

Schriefer said the U.S.'s influence will be much more important than its vote, because it will effectively be replacing Canada, which had a sterling record during its three-year term.

But Canada was outnumbered. Only 22 of the 47 members of the council are considered free nations by Freedom House, and eight of Tuesday's 19 candidates are considered entirely unqualified to judge and promote human rights, the group found.

Those eight -- Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Russia and Saudi Arabia -- are currently on the council, and at least six are essentially guaranteed to be re-elected to it.

The questionable makeup of the council is all the more reason for the U.S. to push hard to improve its behavior, some advocates say -- though even U.S. pressure is unlikely to produce concrete results from within the U.N.

"Nothing will stop America every day, every week, every month from introducing resolutions on Zimbabwe, on Cuba, on China," said Hillel Neuer, director of U.N. Watch, which monitors the U.N. from Geneva.

"They will not be adopted -- they will fail -- but they will put a spotlight on the abusers."

Critics including Schaefer have said that the U.S. can shine that spotlight from outside the controversial council, and that it should not join until there are "serious and strong membership criteria."

Those criteria would be up for rejiggering in 2011 when the U.N. conducts a 5-year review of the council, and Schaefer thinks the U.S. could have used its absence on the council as leverage -- agreeing to join the body only once it reforms itself.

But with human rights crises continuing to erupt around the world, some experts say the U.S. needs to engage at the U.N. right now and cannot wait for a review in two years.

"Ironically, it's an engagement that requires confrontation," Neuer said. "This engagement is not to smile and make nice -- it's to get in there and to slam the Chinese for their egregious violations.

"If America fails to do that, they will have failed us all."

**warpcrafter**

Just another thing that proves the utter worthlessness of the UN. And more proof that a new dark age is just around the corner.

**Railguns**

Wait, a Human Rights Council made up of China, Cuba, AND Saudi Arabia???

Lol whut?

**smiling Assassin**

Railguns wrote:Wait, a Human Rights Council made up of China, Cuba, AND Saudi Arabia???

QFT.

That's like saying an Intergalactic Anti-Homophobia, Peace & Nuclear Disarmament Federation made up of Saruman, Darth Vader and Kim Jong-il.

sA

**MeanGreenStompa**

Railguns wrote:Wait, a Human Rights Council made up of China, Cuba, AND Saudi Arabia???

Lol whut?

No, wait, how about we have a Council without those countries and then, once it's made it's resolutions, it can tell China what to do.. oh wait...

If you have a Council made up of 'nice and fair' countries dictating to the 'nasty and ebil' countries, the dark side are going to flip them the bird and continue turning people into kebabs. Or perhaps you'd like to see economic sanctions levied at China... that'll learn em....

Or tell off those naughty Saudis... just as long as they don't cut off the oil.

**warpcrafter**

Maybe we'll have a hundred or so years of worldwide islamocommunist oppression before the end. That would be fun!

**Kilkrazy**

warpcrafter wrote:Just another thing that proves the utter worthlessness of the UN. And more proof that a new dark age is just around the corner.

We've had the UN argument before. The reason why the UN has problems is partly because the US withdrew much of its support and involvement when the UN did stuff the US didn't like.

This left a partial power vacuum which was filled by nations like China and Russia. It also undermined natural US allies such as the UK and France.

**Railguns**

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Railguns wrote:Wait, a Human Rights Council made up of China, Cuba, AND Saudi Arabia???

Lol whut?

No, wait, how about we have a Council without those countries and then, once it's made it's resolutions, it can tell China what to do.. oh wait...

If you have a Council made up of 'nice and fair' countries dictating to the 'nasty and ebil' countries, the dark side are going to flip them the bird and continue turning people into kebabs. Or perhaps you'd like to see economic sanctions levied at China... that'll learn em....

Or tell off those naughty Saudis... just as long as they don't cut off the oil.

But reading the article shows just mow much "good" those countries have done on the council already.

Those countries need us just as much as we need them for what they do, they need to be in a position to be leveraged into listening. Maybe if we are on the council, Obama may actually live up to his claims and get them compliant. Or they'll just prove how much of a spanker they can really be and continue to behave like the preposterous rears in a top -hat that they are.

**grizgrin**

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Railguns wrote:Wait, a Human Rights Council made up of China, Cuba, AND Saudi Arabia???

Lol whut?

No, wait, how about we have a Council without those countries and then, once it's made it's resolutions, it can tell China what to do.. oh wait...

If you have a Council made up of 'nice and fair' countries dictating to the 'nasty and ebil' countries, the dark side are going to flip them the bird and continue turning people into kebabs. Or perhaps you'd like to see economic sanctions levied at China... that'll learn em....

Or tell off those naughty Saudis... just as long as they don't cut off the oil.

I see what you mean about China and Saudi. And you make a good point. However, it looks like our representatives on this council are being encouraged to bring forth resolutions that drag the human rights abuses of those precise states into the light. To bring forth resolutions that will fail, but in their failure will put the spotlight on these countries. So in effect, it looks like we are going to be "telling off those naughty Saudis" and putting forth proposals that embarass China and other nations on the board. We're going there with the intent of pissing off every member of the board who is a human rights violator. We're going there to be confrontational, and to pick fights. Not that those fights dont necc. need ot be picked.

My point is that we are going to be doing a lot of what you, once past the sarcasm, suggested would be stupid ideas; albeit we will be operating at a much lower level than economic sanctions. The question becomes, since we have officially decided to join this council, how far do we need to go? How much do we want them embarassed and pissed off? To what end and goal? Ostensibly the goal is to force human rights changes in these "naughty" places, but to what degree do we want to roast these people in the global public eye?

My real concern is the US joining the council at all. Sure, the US has it's own human rights issues that will be brought up and thrown about as well (Gitmo, HO!). However, I think that the average human experiences more and better "Human Rights" in America than in China. For all those who want to flame me for daring to make such claims, show some stones and express your opinion in PM. Dont stuff up the thread with your walls of text, with your flames, allegations, denials, or conspiracy theories. Or God forbid, "proof". My opinion is that America has a much better human rights record. I think our presence on this board will give the board as a whole more legitimacy. People will give the board more creedance, more of an ear, and more consideration. I think that this is a bad thing. Why do we want to add legitimacy to this board? I guess the fact that we are joining it indicates the current American regime believes that the fight to drag the human rights issues of the "ebil" countries out into the light of the world stage and eye is more important than adding legitimacy to the board.

Thoughts?

**Frazzled**

Resoltuions by the council can't be passed by one state only. Its irrelevant. thats why those nations are on the council, to squash resolutions against them or their friends in tyranny.

**Orkeosaurus**

I'm a big proponent of joining the council and just making snide comments at other countries.

**grizgrin**

Which is basically what our presence will amount to, Orkeo

**MeanGreenStompa**

grizgrin wrote:
I see what you mean about China and Saudi. And you make a good point. However, it looks like our representatives on this council are being encouraged to bring forth resolutions that drag the human rights abuses of those precise states into the light. To bring forth resolutions that will fail, but in their failure will put the spotlight on these countries. So in effect, it looks like we are going to be "telling off those naughty Saudis" and putting forth proposals that embarass China and other nations on the board. We're going there with the intent of pissing off every member of the board who is a human rights violator. We're going there to be confrontational, and to pick fights. Not that those fights dont necc. need ot be picked.

My point is that we are going to be doing a lot of what you, once past the sarcasm, suggested would be stupid ideas; albeit we will be operating at a much lower level than economic sanctions. The question becomes, since we have officially decided to join this council, how far do we need to go? How much do we want them embarrased and pissed off? To what end and goal? Ostensibly the goal is to force human rights changes in these "naughty" places, but to what degree do we want to roast these people in the global public eye?

Perhaps my sarcasm came across wrongly, I was suggesting that those things would be pointless and stupid ideas If those nations were not 'invited to the party' on this, lecturing and criticising a country with the all round power of China or the money of SA would be pointless and just shrugged off as the overly sensitive west moaning. I also wonder about how much criticism will take place since those two hold so much of the US international debt atm.

In the meantime... WTF, can we please roll some tanks into Zimbabwe and get that mad bastard Mogabe strung up and the breadbasket of Africa back producing food for the rest of the continent...? Now that's the sort of thing this Council should be calling for.

**Railguns**

The council won't call for that because it will upset the sensibilities of the current "naughty" countries. That and the UN seems to hate doing that sort of thing. And if America does it it'll be the same Iraq style arguments over again. As far as the "naughty" countries considering everything we say as moaning, they do that already, regardless of the situation because they like to consider themselves victims.

But seriously, I do think Mugabe needs an ousting, and fast. If we can somehow do that without letting his army run the country into the ground (even further) and put a new dictator in his place.

**Frazzled**

Mugabe is lightweight. You have genocide on WWII Nazi level going on in Darfur. Frankly I'd be ok with US dollars via the CIA sending in weaponry to arm the Southern Africans who are being slaughtered as a race.

**MeanGreenStompa**

Frazzled wrote:Mugabe is lightweight. You have genocide on WWII Nazi level going on in Darfur. Frankly I'd be ok with US dollars via the CIA sending in weaponry to arm the Southern Africans who are being slaughtered as a race.

Omar al-Bashir is currently being sought for trial for crimes against humanity by the ICC and you'll get no arguement from me on his immediate trial and imprisonment. Mugabe needs toppling not just for his crimes (which I feel the term lightweight is somewhat demeaning to those being murdered by his regime) but because, as I said in my earlier post, Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of the continent and restoring order there will aid the continent as a whole.

**smiling Assassin**

Orkeosaurus wrote:I'm a big proponent of joining the council and just making snide comments at other countries.

"Hey, slitty eyes, how's the wife?"

sA

**BrookM**

League of Nations all over again, thanks for nothing Woodrow!

**sebster**

Frazzled wrote:Resoltuions by the council can't be passed by one state only. Its irrelevant. thats why those nations are on the council, to squash resolutions against them or their friends in tyranny.

No, again you demonstrate you have absolutely no idea how international politics works. You seem to have no real basis for anything beyond 'them furriners be treacherous and sneaky'. When everything extends from that point, you're going to end up with some silly conclusions.

Instead, consider the idea that each country works to increase its own influence. This means gaining access to bodies like the HRC. From there they will work to curry favour and push their own view of how much involvement the international community should have in the affairs of individual nations. This means that for a body like HRC to have any real say, it needs to have members from across the spectrum. It means nothing when New Zealand, the UK and Japan get together and say 'you shouldn't dip people in boiling hot tar'. It means something when 40 something countries including some of the dodgy ones get together and say 'everyone except Azerbaijan thinks you shouldn't dip people into boiling tar'.

Then consider the role of softpower. Consider how the world works when the most prosperous and powerful nation on Earth has a strong and consistant line defending the rights of the individual. Consider how developing countries keen to become part of the international community will react to condemnation of human rights abuses. Now consider the same situation, except that prosperous and powerful country is saying as often and as loudly as possible that it is okay with torturing people.

That's what has gone wrong with the human rights movement. All the piffle in the world about the HRC and having Cuba as a member doesn't mean much. It's the UN, it works with compromise because the whole point of the UN is compromise. It's up to biggest, strongest and best nations to hold the light to the way forward, and in the last eight years you guys have really screwed up on that.

Frazzled wrote:Mugabe is lightweight. You have genocide on WWII Nazi level going on in Darfur. Frankly I'd be ok with US dollars via the CIA sending in weaponry to arm the Southern Africans who are being slaughtered as a race.

Yeah! Let's just pile more guns into the region and assume that when our side wins they'll be sweetness and light! That hardly ever goes wrong.

**Railguns**

So, what do YOU suggest doing about it? And you don't get any credit from me by trying to boil down a remark from frazzled as a stereotypical redneck statement(as a matter of fact, thats the only time I ever hear that stereotype, as a derogative). Just because a dodgy country and a "dignified"country are on the same council it doesn't mean that it's because the dodgy one agrees with the other. It may result in absolutely no change in international politics in many cases.

Edit: Because I'm tired from painting a house.

**Ketara**

As someone who lived in Zimbabwe, I find it mildly offensive that Mugabe can be dismissed as a lightweight, considering I personally saw his security guards outside his house shoot someone in the head. Because he was drunk and they could.

**Ratbarf**

Meh, I personnaly think the UN ceased to be a working organism years ago. What the US should really do is stop funding it and redo /create a better NATO. As both organizations are heading for the toilet anyways and its only a matter of time before someone decides to really flaunt its impotency in its face and it will collapse like the League of Nations did. What I would personally like to see would be a consolidation of the Commonwealth into something meaningfull again.

**grizgrin**

Then you can be offended Ketara. Because while what you saw was horrible and I'm sure not isolated in any way, Mugabe pales in comparison to some of the "greats" in history. You can look at so many who were responsible for the wholesale slaughter of millions; Mugabe (while a complete and utter bastard to be sure) is a rank beginner in comparison. A pantywaist. Let's see:

1700 cholera

10k to 30k in 1983-1987 in the Gukurahundi massacres

300 farms swiped by his government and given to his supports in the early 90's. no real way to estimate casualties here.

13 million acres of farm land expropriated from whites. No casualty estimates.

700,000 people made homeless from Operation Murambatsvina. No casualty estimates.

3.5 million people have fled the country.
That's 3.5 million potential casualties that he let slip through his fingers. Khorne is not pleased.

The guy seems more interested in robbing his country blind than killing off the inhabitants or even his political opposition. Heck, the guy who oppossed him in the recent election not only had been up on charges for treason a few years before (and was acquitted, surely something that doesn't happen in a land completely controlled by a maniac tyrant like some history have seen) but is still walking around! What kind of tyrant does this?

Robert Mugabe needs to die in a fire, no doubt. He's horrid, and the damage he has done to Zimbabwe may eventually be undone but it will be decades after his death, maybe centuries. But he has hardly run his numbers up into cruiserweight tyrant territory.

**Ratbarf**

Wasn't it called Rhodesia or something like that before his rise to power?

**grizgrin**

It used to be called Rhodesia. I've no idea if it was because of his rise to power that it changed.

**Ketara**

My word. Here I was thinking that if killing one person made you a murderer, those 30, 000 odd deaths in the matabeleland massacres alone would have been plenty to drive him into the genocide league. I would have thought that once you got past a thousand or so, it really stopped mattering. I didn't realise you'd drawn up your little chart of 'lightweights' and 'cruiserweights'.
How many do you have to kill before you can progress from one rank to another?

There's plenty of other stuff he's done which you're obviously not aware of in any case, although I guess living in the US, youw wouldn't hear that much. Y'see, Bob has actually banned journalists from working in the country on a regular basis. He's a very slick operator.
Mr Mugabe was actually a terrorist against the Rhodesian government before he took control, and butchered many of the Ndbele and white settlers before he even assumed the reins of power.

His people have been dying of starvation quite steadily for the last 5 years or so now, it's difficult to predict how many have died exactly, but that's because Bob isn;t too keen to let the UN inspectors in to count the corpses. As a person who's been to the camps they were being kept in-yes, that's right, Bob set up camps, and forced people to live in them-I walked past many a person dying of starvation. As a matter of fact, I actually walked past a corpse in the street once. Dead from disease or hunger-who knows? The fact is, that was in 2002. If there were corpses in the street in 2002, I can guarantee it's a whole lot worse by now.

White farmers driven off their land? I take it you know nothing of the fake war veterans who work for Bob, and butcher white settlers whenever they can get their hands on them. I remember being told the war vets were coming once, and my parents stuffing us in the car, and fleeing, not even taking time to pack. We didn't go back for three days until we were sure they were gone, as they would have killed us for sure.

So in all honesty, whilst you might be able to look over your predicted facts and figures from your hasty skim of wikipedia, you really have no idea what it's like there.

Apologies if this has turned into a rant, but I'm just disgusted when I hear of some random person in America casually dismissing the horrors which he honestly has no idea of.

**Ratbarf**

Well, Chretien (our Prime Minister at the time) in 2002 when asked by George Bush to join the coalition of the willing went up to Tony Blair and said. "How about you and me go down and take out Mugabe?"

It was confirmed as a joke later but darn it would have been cool had they done it.

**MeanGreenStompa**

grizgrin wrote:
1700 cholera

The Reported figure from Harare to the WHO in March this year exceeds 4000 dead from cholera, that figure is likely a small proportion of the actual figure, being covered up by the gov of Zimbabwe and hidden by the rural lack of communication.

The ban on reporters in Zimbabwe is also doing much to conceal the active rate of disappeared, people who are being taken and either showing up dead and horrifically mutilated or just never showing up at all.

Here's some food for thought though:

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/panorama3.1530.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article4207831.ece

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/murdered-by-mugabes-mob-838145.html

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19082&Itemid=99

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8007406.stm

**Kilkrazy**

Ratbarf wrote:Meh, I personnaly think the UN ceased to be a working organism years ago. What the US should really do is stop funding it and redo /create a better NATO. As both organizations are heading for the toilet anyways and its only a matter of time before someone decides to really flaunt its impotency in its face and it will collapse like the League of Nations did. What I would personally like to see would be a consolidation of the Commonwealth into something meaningfull again.

The US stopped funding the UN years ago, that's a big part of why the UN has become moribund.

Since the USA hasn't been paying its dues, it has lost the practical authority to say the organisation needs reform.

Thirdly, it was principally the USA that set up the UN after WW2, to replace the moribund League of Nations, set up after WW1 by the USA. For the USA to set up a new organisation to replace the UN is simply to repeat the mistakes that have been made in the past.

**Kilkrazy**

grizgrin wrote:It used to be called Rhodesia. I've no idea if it was because of his rise to power that it changed.

Rhodesia was the colony name established by Cecil Rhodes in the 19th century. After WW2 when the UK started to disband its empire, the white settlers in Rhodesia made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the Commonwealth (this was in the 60s, I think) and set up their own government. Black African freedom fighters resisted the white government and having won the war changed the name back to Zimbabwe. Mugabe was a major leader in the resistance movement.