National Post (Canada): UN 'human rights' are an embarrassment

For accuracy's sake, the United Nations' Human Rights Commission should be renamed the "Human Rights" Commission. [..] Allowing rogue nations to control the HRC has turned human rights into a Bizarro World: While some of the world's worst human rights abusers avoid the commission's scrutiny, First World nations with sterling humanitarian records are dragged over the coals [..].

Earlier this week, the Commission on Human Rights inducted 15 members into its rotating 53-member group. Among the joining countries were the United States, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Australia and Zimbabwe. The United States' inclusion was noteworthy as it marked the return of the world's most important democracy after being forced out of the commission last year due to international petulance over U.S. positions on the Kyoto treaty, missile defence and the international criminal court. But the U.S. move does not mitigate the jaw-dropping decision to elect Zimbabwe. [..]

Yet Zimbabwe will feel at home. Some of the world's leading human rights violators -- Libya, Cuba, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Saudi Arabia and Sudan -- make up a powerful bloc on the HRC. Procedural manoeuvres and bloc voting have allowed these countries to stifle scrutiny of themselves and get others off scot free. Two weeks ago the commission voted against a resolution to criticize Zimbabwe. Iran and China have also recently escaped sanction.

Meanwhile, the commission spends its time haranguing First World democracies. [..] Canada is currently under investigation for our treatment of minorities. While HRC members hum and haw over the merits of our affirmative action policies, Khartoum is prosecuting a genocidal race war against its southern tribes, and China continues to oppress Tibet and Falun Gong.

The HRC, in sum, has become a theatre of the absurd in which some of the world's worst tyrants sit in judgment of modern democracies. The body's most hateful excesses might be mitigated by the newly elected Australian and U.S. delegations.
But the fundamentally absurd nature of the body will not be changed. The HRC has become a stain on the United Nation’s legitimacy and an embarrassment to multilateralism.

Source:
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20020427/52188.html