U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), Chairman of the powerful Congressional human rights committee, expressed “deep disappointment and dismay” that the United Nations General Assembly today adopted a “weak and deeply flawed replacement” for the discredited Human Rights Commission.

    “To call what the UN did today ‘reform’ is Orwellian,” Smith said. “The victims of human rights abuse around the world deserve better than this new, egregiously flawed council. The hypocrisy and gross ineffectiveness that was the hallmark of the former Commission will likely continue unless the American position in favor of sweeping reform is enacted.”

    The Human Rights Council is egregiously flawed because:

• It unacceptably lowers the number of votes needed to elect the members of the Council so that notorious human rights violators such as Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe are not excluded. 
  
• The Western Regional Group, which includes the United States and other human rights supporters, will be less influential with fewer votes, making it even more difficult to pass effective human rights resolutions.
  
• Elected countries are only permitted to serve two year terms before rotating off of the Council. The United States and other human rights supporters therefore would be ineligible for Council membership every six years.
  
• It does not adequately protect Israel from unfair and biased Special Sessions which characterized the previous Human Rights Commission. Special Sessions targeted against Israel, the United States and other countries can be called by only 1/3 of the Council’s membership.

    In addition, the new Council will promote the goals and commitments “emanating” from United Nations Conferences and summits, measures that were not intended by Member States to be on par with human rights treaty obligations. 

    “The United Nations has overreached in the most outrageous sense by treating the conclusions of UN bureaucrats as though they were internationally agreed upon treaties.” said Smith, who noted that even the New York Times referred to the proposal as “an ugly sham.”