President Biden’s obsession with quickly reversing his predecessor’s policies causes him to do something he has constantly accused his predecessor of doing: giving legitimacy to murderous dictators.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced this week that Washington will “return immediately and solidly” to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, from which former President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018. US officials will apply for membership full in the October council elections.
The New York Times calls the UNHRC “the world’s largest human rights body,” but “the world’s most corrupt human rights body” would be more appropriate. Its 47 members include flagrant human rights violators and use their position to assess their citizens and the world for their evil deeds – and even have opportunities to condemn Western democracies as real aggressors.
Why would America want to work with an organization apparently dedicated to improving human rights, but dominated by China, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela?
Blinken agrees that the body “is flawed and needs reform,” but argues that addressing its “shortcomings” requires America “at the table, using the full weight of our diplomatic leadership.” He says the council “can serve as an important forum for those fighting injustice and tyranny” – meaning “when it works well”.
But when he has it ever did it work well?
Trump’s withdrawal was not a step in revoking the rules by an unprecedented president. When the Council was created in 2006 to replace the UN Commission on Human Rights, President George W. Bush refused to join and he was cautious: the new body ended up replicating the same problems that led to the dismantling of the old, which was a “Club of aggressors”, as NPR said.
However, President Barack Obama has decided to “come back” because it is “vital” to “have a seat at the table,” said John Kerry, his secretary of state. Sound familiar? But there is zero evidence of reform during the Obama years.
Take the UNHRC’s obsession with condemning Israel, even if it ignores deadly dictatorships. Indeed, the body’s only permanent point of order is Israel, and it has passed more resolutions censoring the Jewish state than the rest of the world combined. He also created eight commissions of inquiry in Israel – and only one in North Korea.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton then said at the Council’s opening session in 2011 that “structural prejudice against Israel” is “wrong” and “undermines” its work. But if the council ignored similar complaints from two UN secretaries-general, Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon, and its own president, Doru Costea – and did – why would it change for Clinton?
Later that year, Richard Falk, the council’s special rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, posted an anti-Semitic cartoon on his blog. The United States, calling them “shameful and outrageous,” called on Falk to resign. He served his six-year term, which ended in 2014.
There is simply no reform of a body that gives the wicked equality with free nations. The UN resolution establishing the council states that members “will uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights” – yet more than half are not even Democrats, earning Freedom House ratings of “not free” or “partially free” .
While the United States had a seat at the table, Faisal bin Hassan Trad of Saudi Arabia was elected chairman of the council’s advisory committee. That was in 2015, in the same year, the powerful Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro, greeted with a standing ovation, gave a 40-minute speech full of lies, with impermissible answers.
When, in 2019, 22 countries signed a letter to the council asking China to close its concentration camps in Xinjiang, where at least one million Uighurs were interned, 50 countries responded by complimenting “the remarkable achievements of the Beijing regime in Xinjiang ”.
Mutual overlap between tyrants may not be even the most tragicomic activity of the council. Last month, North Korea – ruled for decades by a totalitarian dynasty – was given the floor to tell Australia to “stop cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in public places of detention” and “ensure” that people with disabilities can participate. “In elections based on equality with others. ”
Why give the prints of America to a body that mocks freedom? It’s as ridiculous as Biden’s reversal of Trump’s terrorist name by Iran-backed Houthi rebels a few days before he demanded it. . . stop their terrorism. A centered anti-Trump foreign policy is not a real policy at all.
Twitter: @KJTorrance