Business as usual at the UN
UN Watch reports that in its inaugural session the UN Human Rights Council demonstrates that it is hardly an improvement over its predecessor:
Despite some encouraging indicators, the Council failed to adopt a single statement for the victims of gross atrocities in Darfur and for millions of other victims around the world.
We gave high marks for the Council’s attitude toward the participation of NGOs and for its initial steps toward creating new mechanisms.
However, the Council’s decision, adopted just this evening, to single out Israel as the only country in the world subjected to censure — and then to convene an emergency Special Session to one-sidedly condemn Israel again — shows that we are back in the dark days of selectivity and politicization that, as Kofi Annan said, led to the demise of the Council’s predecessor, the discredited Human Rights Commission. In Geneva, tragically, it’s business as usual.
