A stand too far

We have written about the U.N.’s laughable attempt to reform its Human Rights Commission (HRC). That reform purports to address issues that made the HRC such as embarrassment, including the fact that some of the world’s worst human rights offenders, such as Sudan, Libya, participated in and even chaired the body. However, the new plan does not establish strong membership eligibility criteria and, in fact, provides no reason to believe that the worst human rights offenders won’t continue to serve on the HRC.

U.N. amabassador John Bolton led a valiant fight to defeat the sham reform. Unfortunately, he came up more than 100 votes short, and the Bush administration has agreed to participate the “reformed” body. Apparently, we will support it financially and may seek a seat.

Senate Majority Leader Frist has written a letter to President Bush voicing his opposition to U.S. participation. Frist urges the president to organize a council of democratic governments outside of the U.N. to monitor, examine, and expose human rights abuses around the world. Unfortunately, it seems that the administration no longer has enough steam seriously to contemplate taking such a strong stand in the face of what Frist aptly calls “global peer pressure.”

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses