UN human rights commission votes to not condemn countries for violations

[Grimmlok]

Woo go team UN!

The human rights commission will not NOT condemn countries for human rights violations. I guess that means the commission is on vacation for the rest of time then? Wtf will they be doing?

I'm sorry, having bullshit countries like Uzbecky-stan and Bela-whatever dictating policy on items they flagrantly abuse makes no fucking sense.

UNITED NATIONS — A U.N. General Assembly committee has voted to discourage U.N. human rights bodies from condemning any country on human rights, despite objections to the measure from the U.S. and many European countries.

The draft resolution — sponsored by Belarus and Uzbekistan, both of which have been accused of serious human rights abuses — was approved by the assembly's human rights committee on a 77-63 vote, with 26 abstentions.

It now goes to the full 192-member General Assembly for a final vote.

Its key provision stresses the need to avoid "country-specific resolutions on the situation of human rights" and the "exploitation of human rights for political purposes."

Before Thursday's vote, Belarus said the idea for a resolution opposing the targeting of specific countries over their human rights record was approved at the September summit of the 117-nation Nonaligned Movement.

American officials underscored that Belarus and Uzbekistan had both been long-term abusers of human rights. The U.S. also said that resolutions targeting specific countries had given hope to the oppressed and encouraged reform by some governments.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told reporters that the resolution reflected "a real problem with the U.N. human rights machinery."

The new Human Rights Council in Geneva, which earlier this year replaced the discredited Human Rights Commission, has met three times to pass resolutions condemning Israel but hasn't dealt with human rights in Myanmar, North Korea or Sudan, Bolton said.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...path=News/News

I also find it scary that I agree with Bolton on this one. It's a big 'WHAT THE FUCK?"

[cynic]

Very nice. "We've spent 8 quinttillion dollars and spent an equal amount of hours to determine that sometimes people do not do nice things."

Way to get tough......if they are looking for a leader for this new commission, I hear Sadam is free until his necktie party.....

[sputnik]

'condemning' doesn't mean anything, and besides, if there is a very urgent situation, it's the security council that will deal with the matter and it is superior to the GA.
another thing is, all this resolution does is send a message to the human rights council (which is what the GA decision would apply to), but it can't stop it from issuing a condemnation if it so wishes. the rules of the council are defined by another resolution before this one.
also, a 'condemnation' by the council doesn't mean anything concretely, except bad press for the country concerned. it can even be counterproductive since the aim of the council is to get countries to co-operate with the human rights mechanisms - to grant unlimited access to special rapporteurs during country visits, so they can submit a report to the council and recommendations that the country commits itself to implementing, etc.
but if you condemn, you run the risk of alienating a government and being powerless to do anything about the human rights situation.
the UN is ultimately run by states, it cannot impose anything on a country, at least not at that level. if there is a really urgent situation, the security council takes it on as it is the only UN body that can decide to send peacekeeping missions and/or apply economic sanctions.

[Grimmlok]

Yes, but it still rankles that human rights abusers want to negate said condemnation just because they don't like being called on their shit.

It rankles because they're getting away with it and now nobody can slap them for it unless it's a security council situation, which by then will be vetoed by a bunch of asshole countries with their heads of their asses.

The UN blows, a lot of the time.

[ohmygoodness]

And how were they not getting away with it with the condemnation though? Like sputnik said, condemnations mean nothing.

[sputnik]

Originally Posted by Grimmlok

Yes, but it still rankles that human rights abusers want to negate said condemnation just because they don't like being called on their shit.

It rankles because they're getting away with it and now nobody can slap them for it unless it's a security council situation, which by then will be vetoed by a bunch of asshole countries with their heads of their asses.

The UN blows, a lot of the time.

i agree, but blame your government, and most other governments, not the UN itself, which i think could do a lot of good, if its hands weren't tied. there is a whole body of international law that would provide lasting solutions if it were applied. but as longs as state sovereignty is sacrosanct and international human rights law isn't binding, states will stick together when it comes to blocking multilateral agreements that would make it easier to actually go in and do something when this sort of thing happens, without the concerned state's consent. you know what's blocking any real action on darfur in the human rights council? the african group, knowing full well what is going on but still blocking any resolution with wording strong enough to prompt action, with the help of the OIC countries, since the sudan is a muslim country after all. they don't want to be held accountable in any real sense. no state does.
so they make sure they won't be. because they don't want the same thing to happen to them and they don't want to have UN inspectors snooping around with unlimited access in their prison system (or, say, the prison they keep on an army base). .