Last month was the 67th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, whose principles of universal freedom and rights for the world’s citizens were to be promoted by an organization created specifically for that purpose, the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Currently serving the standard three-year terms as members of that council are China, Russia, Venezuela, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and Cuba (China, Russia, and Cuba have served multiple three-year terms). Previously, Pakistan (also having served multiple terms), and Uganda served on the council, as have Nicaragua and Libya (the latter no longer a functioning state, it’s safe to say it won’t be serving again for a while).
What all of those nations have in common, of course, is a dismal human rights record. Every nation listed above has been led by brutal dictators (Venezuela, Cuba, Libya), hereditary monarchies (Saudi Arabia) or Communist/Socialist/Islamic-inspired governments (all the rest) in which the people have little to no say in how their leaders are chosen, and their rights and freedoms are violated on a daily basis.
In fact, more than half of the 47 current members of the U.N. Human Rights Council are ranked as only partly free, or not free, by Freedom House, an independent non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to promoting world freedom. What is more, the current council members listed above — China, Russia, Venezuela, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Cuba — are all included in the State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices as being guilty of placing draconian restrictions on the freedoms and rights of their people.
In addition, no surprise here, this human rights council has a tendency to punish the one country in the Middle East that is actually a real democracy that protects the rights of its citizens, Israel. Since 2006 more than 61 council resolutions have been passed singling out alleged human rights violations by Israel, while somehow missing the massive human rights violations in Russia, Cuba, China and Venezuela, to name just a few.
Speaking of which, the United States pays approximately 22 percent, around $565 million, of the U.N.’s annual budget of $5.1 billion, but in 2009 the United States became a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council, and reversing longstanding U.S. policy, President Obama committed U.S. taxpayer dollars directly to the council’s funding. As U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice put it at the time, by “working from within” the council, the Obama administration “can make the council a more effective forum to promote and protect human rights.”
Judging by the council’s membership and performance since 2009, the strategy of “working from within” has worked about as well as the Obama administration’s military and diplomatic strategy of “leading from behind.”
