Publius comes up with an interesting factoid about the United Nations — 6 of the 18 most oppressive regimes on the planet are members of the UN Commission on Human Rights:
Significantly, six of the eighteen most repressive governments–those of China, Cuba, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe–are members of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), representing nearly 11 percent of the 53-member body.
“Repressive governments enjoying CHR membership work in concert and have successfully subverted the Commission’s mandate,†said Freedom House Executive Director Jennifer Windsor. “Rather than serving as the proper international forum for identifying and publicly censuring the world’s most egregious human rights violators, the CHR instead protects abusers, enabling them to sit in judgment of democratic states that honor and respect the rule of law,†she said.
The UN is a deeply flawed organization, regardless of the nobility of its intentions. When some of the world’s most atrocious serial abuses of human rights are given the responsibility of upholding human rights standards the seriousness of the UN about upholding those standards has to be called into question. The UN is in dire need of sweeping and fundamental reform — of course, the current leadership has absolutely no desire of cutting off their gravy train, which is why the stench that emanates from Turtle Bay won’t be ceasing any time soon.
