U.S. Will Not Seek Seat On New U.N. Human Rights Council

Yesterday’s New York Times reported that the United States will not be a candidate for one of the 47 seats on the new United Nations Human Rights Council. The HRC was approved last month by the General Assembly, with the United States being almost alone in opposing it because of insufficient safeguards against countries with human rights violations becoming members. (See prior posting.) John R. Bolton, the United States envoy, said that U.S. leverage would be greater by not running. Others, however, speculated that the U.S. feared it could not obtain the 96 votes in the U.N. General Assembly needed to be elected in light of revelations of abuses of detainees in Iraq and of clandestine prisons abroad. Felice Gaer, director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights criticized the U.S. decision not to seek a place on the Commission, saying "All key decision about serious reform issues, from the curtailment of inappropriate bodies to whether and how countries are scrutinized, will be made in the first year."