Today, the United Nations Human Rights Council is holding an “urgent” debate on police brutality and systemic racism. While the UNHRC president says the debate is not just about the United States, it’s clear the U.S. is the primary subject as the killing of George Floyd was the catalyst for the meeting. And it’s clear that the conclusion the council will reach is a sham.
The Human Rights Council has been an abomination for years, with its only clear goals being the demonization of Israel and providing cover for the world’s biggest human rights abusers. Watchdog U.N. Watch found that the UNHRC targeted Israel in their March 2018 session more than Iran, North Korea, and Syria combined. In the March 2019 session, Israel received five resolutions. Russia, China, Turkey, Venezuela, and Qatar received none. And this week, the U.S. is now on the hook for a resolution, on the same plane as Iran, Syria, and North Korea. Russia and China are the target of none, and once again, Israel is the target of five.
The council is an abomination because most of the countries it should be examining are sitting members of the body. China and Cuba were members until the end of last year. Qatar, which has been using slave labor to build stadiums for the 2022 World Cup, is a sitting member. Nicolas Maduro’s socialist dictatorship didn’t stop Venezuela from becoming a member this year, nor did Libya’s human rights abuses or Mauritania’s slavery.
There’s a reason the Human Rights Council was the original whipping boy of U.N. critics before the World Health Organization was revealed to be a Chinese puppet. “The Human Rights Council is a poor defender of human rights, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said when the U.S. withdrew from the council in 2018, “But worse than that, the Human Rights Council has become an exercise in shameless hypocrisy with many of the world’s worst human rights abuses going ignored.”
The U.S. was right in its assessment in 2018, and the show trial that council members will make of the U.S. won’t mean much of anything. But in principle, the Human Rights Council’s existence is just an exercise in appeasing real human rights abusers. Between this and the World Health Organization’s debacle over the coronavirus and China, it’s time for Americans to start considering real alternatives to the U.N.
