LITTLE ROCK — We should honor BP for protecting the environment. While we’re at it, we can name Jack the Ripper to the Commission for the Protection of Women, and make Philip Morris a special adviser on pulmonary health. This would all make perfect sense if we followed the example of UN Human Rights Council, one of the most astonishing organizations the world has devised under the UN umbrella.
The council operates as a parody of itself, as if it had been designed by a team of comedians writing theater of the absurd. The reality, however, is that the UNHRC is a disaster that requires some decisive action by countries that truly value human rights, especially the United States.
Today’s UNHRC stands as one of the greatest obstacles impeding the protection of human rights by the international community. The organization makes a mockery of the suffering of the victims of human-rights abuses, glorifying their tormentors and depriving victims of a desperately needed protective voice. The obscenely dysfunctional UNHRC has removed from the arsenal of civilization a critically needed tool against regimes that brutalize their people. And now, adding to its dazzling performance in the field of human rights, the council is working its magic against freedom of the press.
The question now is what does the Obama administration-and the world’s democratic nations-plan to do about this suppurating sore on the body of the world’s foremost international organization?
Where to begin to explain the outrages? Let’s look at the council’s Advisory Committee: The group is chaired by Halima Warzazi of Morocco,whose history-making contribution to human rights came when Saddam Hussein used poison gas against Iraq’s Kurds in 1988. Warzazi proudly blocked the UN’s move to condemn the massacre. The vice-chair of the committee is the always impressive Swiss diplomat Jean Ziegler, who helped Libya’s despot Moammar Qaddafi create the charmingly named “al-Qaddafi International Prize for Human Rights,” and became its first winner.
Ziegler who, like the rest of the council, is obsessed with Israel’s sins to the exclusion of any other problem on Earth, has shared the Qaddafi prize honor with Fidel Castro, Louis Farrakhan, Hugo Chavez and other luminaries of freedom. The latest “expert adviser” is Nicaragua’s Miguel D’Escoto Brockman, admirer of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and defender of Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
The council, where the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) effectively dominates the proceedings, now threatens freedom of speech under the guise of protecting religion from defamation. The OIC pushed through a resolution creating a watchdog to prevent perceived slights in the media against religion, such as the cartoons of Mohammed printed in Danish newspapers.
The UN Human Rights Council’s behavior is so offensive that it might qualify for that Qaddafi human-rights prize. It’s time for the United States to make its presence useful there or else lead democratic countries out of the organization.
Frida Ghitis writes about global affairs for the Miami Herald.
Editorial, Pages 14 on 06/29/2010