With the Assad regime murdering hundreds of protesters, it’s patently grotesque that Syria might get a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council. And yet, when the General Assembly votes on May 20th on candidates for the Human Rights Council. it looks like Syria will be a shoe-in.
How can that be? At the UN, process trumps human rights, and despots are too often adept at playing that fundamental flaw like a fiddle. Syria’s regime is no exception. Seats on the 47 member Human Rights Council are doled out mainly on the basis of geography, rather than decency. Various geographic groups enjoy specific allocations of seats, and nominate members to rotate through as the seats come open. This year, four of the 13 seats apportioned to the Asian group are up for grabs, and the Asian group has nominated exactly four candidates to fill them — India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Syria. With four candidates for four seats, all Syria needs is a simple majority of 97 votes in the 192-member General Assembly. Are there that many members of the General Assembly willing to vote aye in this Orwellian exercise? Quite likely. When Libya ran for a seat in 2010 (from which it was only recently suspended), it got 155 votes. In 2009. Saudi Arabia got 154 votes, Cuba got 163, and China got the same number as the U.S. — 167.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon — loquacious in such matters as his defense of terrorist-run Gaza, or his desire to see democracies in dialogue with North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Il — has declined to opine on Syria’s bid for the Human Rights Council. Ban’s spokesman told Fox News that this is not Ban’s bailiwick, but a matter to be left to UN member states. The U.S. State Department opposes Syria’s bid, but does not yet seem to have any clear strategy for blocking Syria, and evidently has not yet managed to persuade a fifth and preferably benign member of the Asian group to enter the running — which would dim Syria’s chances by introducing at least some real competition.
So, what to do? Even before Syria’s bid for a seat, this same Human Rights Council was already busy grossly discrediting itself. Back in 2003, its precursor, the Human Rights Commission, became an emblem of UN farce by electing Libya as its chair. The Commission was “reformed” in 2006, into the current Human Rights Council — which the Bush administration refused to join, on grounds that its structure was skewed toward capture by the usual gang of despots. President Barack Obama over-rode that policy, and in 2009 the U.S. joined the Council, arguing that it would be easier to work for change from within. That did nothing to stop the Council from indulging in such bigotries as the Goldstone Report; or its continuing engagement with 9/11 conspiracy theorist Richard Falk, its special rapporteur on human rights for the Palestinian territories; or Libya’s Najat Al-Hajjaji, whose chairwomanship of the old Human Rights Commission in 2003 did so much to discredit that precursor of the current Council. Russia, China, Cuba and Cameroon are all active current members of the Council. Now, here comes Syria.
Grotesque? Oh yeah. Obscene, even.
Unexpected? Unbelievable? Unconscionable? Nope – UN
The best option is for those countries which receive passing grades from Freedom House, and Transparency International, to work together on an ad hoc basis after pulling out of the UN.
What a wonderful idea. Human Rights Council to Syria: it will help the local economy and get the diplomats into a country that really understands human rights and knows how to liquidate them.
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” –Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
So what is anyone in the UN going to do about this? Shall we have Libya on that committee as well? Why not put Pakistan there?
We ought to defund the UN if it votes these nations to such a committee. At least then we can say with a straight face that we’re not a part of this disgusting exercise of stupidity.
I volunteer my pickup truck and 3 helpers. When do we start?
I just saw Ms. Rosett discussing this on the Cavuto show, Stuart Varney hosting.
Well said.
The UN functions as designed, as a meeting place of nations and peoples. Of course the majority of it’s members are brutal tyrannies. How could it be otherwise?
Good perspective and salient comments .
Trying to round up Guinea hens or hogs and directing them into a pen is a country term referred to as a shoo-in. If you’ve ever done it you may know it isn’t a sure thing.
Say don’t criticize. As a member we have to report yearly to HRC on our own poor human rights record. Praise be Obama who signed us up for judgment by the planet’s moral scum.
Get the fricken UN out of my country!!!!