POSTED AT 1:58 PM EDT Thursday, May 03

U.S. voted off UN Human Rights Commission

Reuters News Agency

United Nations — The United States failed to win re-election on Thursday to the Geneva-based Human Rights Commission which investigates rights abuses throughout the world, UN officials said.

Instead France, Austria and Sweden were chosen for the three seats allocated to Western countries among the 43 nations voting in the Economic and Social Council, the umbrella group for the commission. The United States has been a member of the 530-nation commission since it was established in 1947.

No reason for the U.S. loss was immediately available, but Joanna Weschler, the UN representative of Human Rights Watch, said Western and developing countries bore grudges against the United States.

"They should have seen it coming, because there has been a growing resentment towards the U.S. and their votes on key human-rights standards, including opposition to a treaty to abolish land mines and to the International Criminal Court and making AIDS drugs available to everyone," she told Reuters.

Other nations that the United States has held up to the spotlight in the Geneva commission, such as China or Cuba, resented U.S. actions on the committee and "made their feelings well known in their speeches, " she said

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2001