On May 13, serious human rights advocates were dismayed-if not surprised-when Colonel Qadaffi's Libya was elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council. They shouldn't have been. Libya is a perfect fit for the UN body.
I don't mean to suggest that the Libyan government is a human rights exemplar. It most decidedly is not. But the UN Human Rights Council itself is hardly a champion of human rights. Given this, it makes sense that a human rights abuser like Libya would be welcomed with open arms, lest any casual observer be confused of what the UNHRC represents.
A quick glance at the council's membership roll should disabuse any objective observer of the seriousness of the UN's preeminent human rights body. When the new council convenes, Libya will join such human rights paragons as China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia to sit in judgment of other countries' human rights abuses. Of the council's 47 members, only 20 are considered "free" countries according to Freedom House ratings. A full 13 are designated as "not free," while the rest fall somewhere in between.
While innocent political prisoners suffer in North Korean concentration camps and slavery still persists in too many parts of the world, the UN Human Rights Council's attention has been obsessively focused on Israel, the most liberal society in the Middle East.
In 2007, of the nearly 200 countries in the world, Israel garnered the most actions taken by the council. In 2008, the council's number one target was Israel. In 2009, the council's number one target was Israel. Guess who has been the council's number one target so far in 2010? Sudan. Just kidding. It was Israel.
And it is not like Israel barely wins out as the most targeted country year after year. In 2007, it had nearly double the number of actions taken (i.e. reports, resolutions, etc.) than the next closest country. In 2008, it had 5 times more actions taken than the next closet country. In 2009, it led by a factor of 3. So far in 2010 it has a 2 to 1 advantage over its closest competitor.
Understanding the council's warped priorities, doesn't Libya seem like a perfect addition to the pseudo human rights body?
"You could make that argument," Executive Director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer told me in a phone interview from his office in Geneva, Switzerland. "At the same time, I work with victims...For us, editorialists and critics, we can have a laugh at it, and say it just exposes the council for what it really is, but the way it is used in these countries. A country like Cuba, when Cuba was elected, they run to their state owned media and say ‘the world loves us and we're legitimate.'"
Neuer makes a fair point. He has also had the searing experience of meeting with some of Libya's victims, such as the Bulgarian nurses tortured and imprisoned under the false pretense that they deliberately infected Libyan children with AIDS.
Yet, those who live in the world's totalitarian societies are not dupes. They are not likely fooled by their tormentors' election to a bogus human rights council. They surely see the fraud as well as any of us in the West, maybe better.
The real question is whether liberal democracies should even participate in such a farce. After all, President George W. Bush refused to legitimatize the council by ending all official American participation with it in 2008. President Obama has since reversed this policy. While Neuer agrees with the participation approach, he believes it must come with certain conditions.
"If the United States, and other countries like it, would do the necessary, take action against the bad guys, speak out whenever there is an outrage, then their presence on the council could have value," he said. "My concern is that by and large many of the democracies have failed to take action against the abusers and are not speaking out as they should."
This was exemplified by the West's "determined and deliberate" silence on Libya's election to the Human Rights Council, Neuer added, when the reaction should have been, in a word, "outrage."
But outrage is not what we got. Instead, the UN Human Rights Council circus show continues unimpeded.