Anne Bayefsky on the new UN Human Rights Council

Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a professor at Touro Law School, and the editor of EYEontheUN.org. She is an internationally renowned expert on international human rights, so how could I not post her opinion of the UN Human Rights Council, right? Well, here's the article she authored in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle (this op-ed first appeared in the Weekly Standard), but copied below are some comments I found particularly worrisome:

There has been a massive disinformation campaign concerning the U.N. Human Rights Council, operated by General Assembly President Jan Eliasson, Secretary General Kofi Annan, and U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, with added muscle from Ted Turner's U.N. Foundation and financier George Soros.

What??!!
Is she in her right mind? And can we please see some evidence of this "disinformation campaign" in place of these sweeping statements?

In short, nothing has changed. The newly "reformed" human rights body of the United nations will once again include countries that have no interest in protecting human rights; the regions of the world with the fewest democracies will hold 55 percent of the seats. Standing in the background lamenting U.S. nonparticipation are some, like Amnesty International's Irene Khan, who believe that the "gulag of our times" is Guantánamo -- not the Egyptian, Syrian, Iranian and Sudanese torture chambers -- and that the business of promoting human rights is best conducted with the delinquents on the inside, enjoying the privileges of the human rights club, instead of standing outside until they reform.

Sen. Frist suggests a bold new direction for the international promotion of human rights outside the United Nations. The time is ripe for such an initiative.

Bayefsky's reference to Irene Khan's comments proved to be very thought-provoking for me. If one analyzes the UN Security Council closely and looks at the members who hold veto power, can one really say they've played an active role in the maintenance of peace and security in the world? US interventions in Vietnam, East Timor, Korea, and now in Afghanistan and Iraq, prove that being a member of an entity like a UN subsidiary body or agency does not ensure that what the members set out to do will in actuality ever happen. On the one hand, it is difficult to undertake such grand endeavors but on the other hand, wielding such power should make the bearers of the power realize that they have a great responsibility upon their shoulders. Can one really say with a straight face that the UN SC veto bearing powers have played the role expected of them?

I think not.

Miscellaneous comments on the Human Rights Council

Ever since the US announced it would not consider membership to the newly created Human Rights Council of the United Nations, many international affairs experts have expressed deep remorse and regret. I thought i'd put post their views here as well.

Comments by Ambassador William Leurs, President of the United Nations Association, can be found here.

Comments by Ambassador Tim Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation, can be found here.

Comments by Jeffrey Laurenti, Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation, can be found here.

Christian Science Monitor on Israel Lobby report

I found this Christian Science Monitor article to be one of the most comprehensive pieces on the issue, gathering information and commentary from a wide variety of sources including Foreign Policy, the Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz, the Jerusalem Newswire, and other media outlets. A must read if you dont have time, but want a good gist of arguments and viewpoints.

Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy

This paper, authored by two of today's foremost political scientists - John Mearsheimer (of the University of Chicago) and Stephen Walt (of Harvard University) - is really something you wouldnt expect of political scientists coming from these sorts of institutions. Moreover, the report arrives at some conclusions that people talk about behind closed doors - never in a report that the entire world has access to.

Having mentioned this, Walt and Mearsheimer have said the unspeakable, and are now being criticized for their "unscholarly work" as well as "anti-Semitism". The mass media isnt reporting this in their outlets, but the report has been very much like a bomb thrown in the center of a serene, peaceful village with everyone now awake and screaming. The report is so critical of the Israeli lobby and its pervasive influence on American foreign policy, that no publication here in the US was ready to publish it. An edited version of the report was eventually published in late March by the London Review of Books.

Here's the LRB article and here's the report in its entirety, and here's an abstract of the paper from Harvard's website:

"In this paper, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago's Department of Political Science and Stephen M.Walt of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government contend that the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy is its intimate relationship with Israel. The authors argue that although often justified as reflecting shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, the U.S. commitment to Israel is due primarily to the activities of the “Israel Lobby." This paper goes on to describe the various activities that pro-Israel groups have undertaken in order to shift U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction."

More info/news on this report to come, though in the meantime please do leave comments.

US not to apply for membership to UN Human Rights Council

The weekend hasnt even started and i'm already a happy camper!

Jokes aside, I do feel this is a positive move. Not only was I initially upset at how a country like the US with its checkered history of perpetrating war crimes and then calling foul on others could apply for membership, but then even vie for a leadership position? It was not a pleasant feeling.

With this latest development, I believe it will give states the opportunity to work effectively and efficiently without having the influence of a hegemon peering over their shoulders. At the same time, it does raise the question of whether the US will continue to indulge in the activities it has been rebuked on now that it will not be a member of the HRC. The US has not signed or ratified several treaties, conventions and statutes, thereby absolving it of any responsibility vis-a-vis those documents. This move could potentially backfire.