Frist: No to UN Human Rights Council

Via The Corner; FRIST INTRODUCES RESOLUTION OPPOSING U.S. PARTICIPATION IN U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

�The newly created U.N. Human Rights Council fails to address the significant failures and shortcomings of the widely discredited U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Since its establishment in 1946, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights sacrificed efficacy and credibility by granting membership to some of the world�s worst human rights abusers, neglecting to condemn state sponsors of terrorism, and failing to act or speak out against numerous cases of egregious human rights abuse.
�The new council makes only superficial changes to the former commission structure and falls far short of the standards envisioned by President Bush and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The new council will not prevent serial human rights abusers from gaining membership and cannot be relied upon to monitor human rights abuses throughout the world.
�I applaud the administration for opposing the creation of the new council and urge it to oppose U.S. participation in and support of the council in order to uphold America�s own credibility and deny the council unwarranted legitimacy.
�If the U.N. refuses to make meaningful changes to the council structure, the U.S. should lead a group of like-minded democracies with a demonstrated commitment to the protection of human rights to create an effective and accountable human rights oversight body outside the U.N. system. The U.S. must adhere to its principles and continue to demonstrate its commitment to meaningful reform and to the protection of human rights.�

(Emphasis mine.)
Marion Edwyn Harrison, National Ledger;

It rather defies the imagination to visualize how any UN entity designed to promote human rights could do so when UN membership, and disproportionately UN leadership, consists of nations and politicians from nations which are the human-rights culprits. United States Ambassador John Bolton, with considerable (but insufficient) support from UN member nations, proposed a set of reforms that arguably would have breathed some morality and effectiveness into this new Council. Not surprisingly, the UN member majority rejected these efforts.
There now appears to be an effort to induce the Bush Administration to provide money for this new UN Council, possibly to seek a United States seat (only to be outvoted, as would happen if the inmates ran a prison).