With broad reform of the world body stalled, the U.N. General Assembly voted earlier this month to approve a new Human Rights Council. While this is only a first step, it does provide hope for U.N. reform after all. The old Human Rights Commission was an egregious sore, more notable for its human-rights failures than its successes. Its replacement is not perfect, but it is a marked improvement and may yet fulfill the hopes of human-rights supporters -- and U.N. advocates -- around the world.
The United Nations established the Human Rights Commission 60 years ago to ensure that citizens enjoyed the freedoms enshrined in the U.N. Charter and other international treaties and conventions. Over time, however, the 53-member commission was noted more for its efforts to block international scrutiny of human-rights violations than its readiness to criticize and condemn them. Seats were allocated by region.
As a result, commission members often included the governments with horrific human-rights records, and they joined together to neutralize the commission. Indeed, the Human Rights Commission subverted the very principles it was designed to uphold by shielding the worst offenders and focusing its attention on other countries for political purposes.