CNS News.com

Criticism of UN Action Against US Mounts
By Jim Burns, CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
May 04, 2001

(CNSNews.com) - The United Nations Human Rights Commission vote Thursday removing the United States from the commission continues to generate criticism. Many fear it could generate more hostility toward the world body from Congress.

The United Nations Association of the United States, the largest American support group of the organization fears the vote will fuel criticism from conservatives both in Congress and the Bush White House.

"It's an unequivocally devastating blow. It couldn't be worse. All the conservatives in the [Bush] administration will see this as proof that we are in an organization full of enemies," UNA-USA President William Luers said in a statement.

One of those conservatives, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) said Friday he wasn't surprised by the commission vote.

"There's no surprise that a few European countries maneuvered in a secret vote to eliminate the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Countries like China, Cuba and Sudan will no longer be subject to the careful scrutiny that the United States has always demanded," Helms said in a statement.

Helms added, "The fact is that as a result of the elimination of the U.S. from the Commission, freedom will no longer be of significance. The absence of the United States will mean that the victims of human rights abuses will no longer have a spokesman to defend their hopes for liberty and freedom."

While not known as a conservative, Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.), former chairman of the House International Relations Committee had scathing criticism of the United Nations action.

"This U.N. [Human Rights] Commission has increasingly become a refuge for despots and scoundrels, indicative of our nation's inattention to this problem for the past 8 years. We have allowed powerful governments, such as China, to dominate the Commission ... The Commission has turned into a closely knit group of human rights abusers," Gilman said, singling out China, Cuba, Libya, Syria, and Sudan.

Gilman also called the U.S. ejection from the Human Rights Commission a sad day for democracy and for the rule of law. "We now need to do some intensive soul searching, vigorously redevelop a sense of urgency about these issues at the highest levels of our government."

The present House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) called the U.N. vote, "absurd."

"In recent years, the United States often failed to support important human rights initiatives at the commission, or found itself voting alone, or on the wrong side of important issues. It's not surprising that the U.S. was voted off. But to punish the United States and reward Sudan is clearly absurd," Hyde said in a statement.

However, some Democrats, including House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt, blame the Bush administration for the U.S. being voted out of the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

Gephardt, a Missouri Democrat, issued a statement saying "the Bush administration's recent withdrawal from the Kyoto Treaty and its willingness to shatter the international arms control framework in pursuit of unproven missile defenses influenced the vote by other nations against our nomination to the Commission ... This is very unfortunate."

Gephardt concluded, "I hope the Bush administration shifts course, and learns that our government must work cooperatively with our allies and other nations when possible to have influence abroad." [OG Note: Poppycock! This vote has been in the works for a long time. How demagogic (and predictable) of Gephardt to blame the Bush administration!]

He said President Bush's failure to follow diplomatic precepts "has undermined our government's ability to sustain its leadership role in the human rights arena."

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y), co-chairman of the bipartisan United Nations working group in the House, expressed similar sentiment. She thinks the vote was an embarrassment to the United States.

"President Bush has dragged his feet in getting key foreign policy officials confirmed. It is unacceptable that we still have no U.N. ambassador, and this vote is a painful blow to our global leadership on human rights and democracy. The U.S. commitment to human rights has fallen victim to the administration's laissez-faire attitude toward diplomacy and foreign policy," said Lowey in a statement on Capitol Hill.

Amnesty International USA called the U.S. removal, "part of an effort by nations that routinely violate human rights to escape scrutiny. The U.S. was among the few nations willing to actively push for condemnation at the U.N.H.R.C. of the brutal human rights violations committed by nations like China."

Amnesty International also accused the commission members of failing to do their job, because they caved in to political and economic pressures.

-- Anonymous, May 05, 2001

Answers

MSNBC

Questions & Answers: A Fit of Pique?

The decision to vote the United States off a global human-rights body weakens the United Nations, says former secretary of State Madeleine Albright

By Arlene Getz, NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

May 4 — More than five decades after Eleanor Roosevelt helped establish the United Nations Human Rights Commission, the United States has been ousted from the international organization. In a secret vote, members of the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council chose France, Austria and Sweden over the United States to fill three Western three-year vacancies on the body.

THE UNEXPECTED MOVE—backed even by some Washington allies—shocked politicians and human-rights organizations inside the United States. While the State Department issued a statement saying it was “greatly disappointed” by the vote, leading members of Congress condemned the sidelining of the United States by a commission that includes countries like Cuba and Libya. Madeleine Albright, former secretary of State and a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., spoke to NEWSWEEK’S Arlene Getz about the decision.

Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: How significant is this for the United States?

Madeleine Albright: I think it’s more significant for the United Nations. The U.N. has in many ways sidelined the Human Rights Commission as a result of this.

Why did the United States lose the vote?

It’s very hard to get inside people’s heads on this, but I think there are some aspects which are probably technical. Having been up there myself, one of the difficult parts always is where there are more candidates than there are seats. [Here] there were four candidates for three [Western] seats. I also think it’s unfortunate that basically these are all European countries that have taken these seats. There’s generally the sense that the European Union now feels that it operates as a unit and leaves the others out.

So was this vote a case of the European Union flexing its muscles? Or was it an anti-American message?

I don’t know whether it’s an anti-American message. I hate to come to that conclusion, though I am sure that there is some anger and frustration over the [United States] pulling out from [the] Kyoto [treaty on global warming] and the [Bush administration] now saying that they are not in favor of the ABM [the 1972 antiballistic-missile treaty]. I personally am opposed to the positions that have been taken by this administration. We worked very hard in our administration to get the funding back for the U.N. We managed to do that, so I don’t think there should be any anti-U.S. feeling in terms of [our] support of the U.N.. I think that there may be some frustration over the pullouts from these other treaties.

Could the European countries also have been signaling their opposition to domestic U.S. policies? The use of the death penalty, for example?

I don’t know. The death penalty is obviously something that is very big in Europe, but it’s very hard to speculate about this.

Does this vote suggest that the U.S. is no longer considered an essential player in global treaties and organizations?

There are those that are not happy with U.S. policy, but I think they also need to know that a lot of the international system doesn’t work without the U.S. I would hope that it doesn’t signal any different attitude. I think that it is a short-term vote that is very bad, and short-term pique, for whatever reason, should not determine something of this importance. The sad part here is that while those countries who voted against the United States may feel comfortable for a moment, they have weakened the system very badly and have given a lot of solace to those in Congress who are opposed to the United Nations.

So you think it will harden attitudes among conservatives who are suspicious of the U.N.?

I think there is such an absurdity that Sudan—and Cuba and various other human rights violators—[are] on the Human Rights Commission and we are not. What this really does is show the absurdity of some of the U.N.’s methods. I am the foremost advocate and supporter of the U.N. and plan to always be. But I think that the U.N. has hurt itself very badly and it will in fact give fodder to those who are anti-U.N.

What practical effect will the U.S. absence have on human-rights programs around the world?

My sense about this is that it makes the Human Rights Commission less important. That’s the sad part about it, because I thought it was a very good forum for raising human-rights issues. I would presume that the U.S. is going to continue to speak out on human rights. The State Department puts out its human-rights reports every year; it will continue to do that. It could be that the spotlight [on human rights] will come from somewhere else—NGOs, various human-rights organizations and individual governments. The victim of this is the Human Rights Commission.

What about China? The U.S. wants the commission to issue a public condemnation of China’s human-rights record, but France—which won 52 out of a possible 54 votes in the voting yesterday—says it prefers cooperation and dialogue to confrontation.

The Chinese can’t escape the fact that they have a lousy human-rights record. They have managed to have a no-action motion in the Human Rights Commission for a number of years, but it doesn’t change the real situation, which is that their human-rights status at the moment is outside the boundaries.

It has been suggested that the United States lost these votes because it currently doesn’t have an ambassador to the U.N. to provide the necessary leadership and lobbying.

The [acting ambassador] there, Jim Cunningham, is a remarkable person who did a great deal of work before when our permanent representative wasn’t always there. He is a very fine person, so I don’t think that’s the fault. What is too bad is that the whole confirmation process—for everyone—is so slow, that it’s hard for people all over the world to assume their posts. It’s very hard work to get elected to any post at the U.N. There are [voting] instructions that come from capitals, so it is up to the State Department itself to make sure that capitals are contacted and that it’s very clear how important the vote is. This is not just a one-person show. It is the determination of the entire administration to make clear that this is an important issue.

Whether this administration did that or not, I have no way of knowing. It is something that we spent a great deal of time on. I went to the Human Rights Commission myself last year to give the speech outlining our position on China, having left President Clinton in India and then flown back to India to join him, because I saw the Human Rights Commission as being very important and our position on it as very important.

The other thing that unfortunately happens, is that as you take a vote count in the U.N.—in the Economic and Social Council [which oversees the commission]—there are countries who say that they will vote for you and then, because it’s a secret ballot, ultimately don’t. That could also have happened.

Are you suggesting that there may not have been enough lobbying by the State Department?

I’m saying that it’s an all-out effort by everybody. I don’t know what happened, but I would not blame it simply on the fact that there wasn’t an ambassador.

-- Anonymous, May 05, 2001

GENEVA (May 5, 2001 12:57 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - Since Washington lost its seat on the top U.N. human rights body, it won't be able to use its vote to criticize China, protect Israel, and take other stands of principal.

SNIP

I praise the United States for its role in the recent session on human rights, especially regarding the Middle East issues and the stand on Israel," said Israeli Ambassador Yaakov Levy.

Puzzling some diplomats was whether the United States failed to campaign hard enough for its seat, perhaps because it was between ambassadors.

As a superpower, they said, the United States could have used backroom procedures to make sure the Western group sent forward only three nominees for its three seats.

Instead, it nominated four candidates. France got 52 votes, Austria 41 votes, Sweden 32 votes, edging out the United States which had 29.

Latin America and Africa both sent forward only the nominees to match the number of seats allotted to them.

http://www.nandotimes.com/global/story/0,1024,500558313-500797395- 504277923-0,00.html Smells fishy!!! Normal voting procedures to limit the number of candidates to the slots available not followed !!
LOL !! what a dysfunctional body that usually uses this procedure in the first place..

-- Anonymous, May 06, 2001

"This U.N. [Human Rights] Commission has increasingly become a refuge for despots and scoundrels, indicative of our nation's inattention to this problem for the past 8 years.

I believe Bush has only been in office for a few months, so....

-- Anonymous, May 06, 2001

I find it absolutely ludicrous that the Democrats are blaming Bush's stance on Kyoto and missile defense for this fiasco. The countries involved in human rights abuses could care less about pollution and annihilation!

The UNA-USA President said, "All the conservatives in the [Bush] administration will see this as proof that we are in an organization full of enemies." Good grief, man, even someone to the far, far left will have to stop and wonder about the effectiveness of the UN!

-- Anonymous, May 06, 2001