The U.S. State Department announced Friday (press release) that the U.S. is withdrawing from further participation in the United Nations Durban Review Conference and will re-engage only if dramatic revisions are made in the document being drafted for the Conference. It said the current draft "has gone from bad to worse." The United States and Israel walked out of the first Conference, held in Durban in 2001, because of the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel focus of many participants. Now, after preliminarily participating in planning sessions for Durban II (see prior posting), the U.S. essentially joins Canada and Israel which have already announced they will boycott this year's Conference. The U.S. is concerned not just about the anti-Israel focus of the current Conference draft document, but also about its endorsement of a ban on "defamation of religion" and its language on reparations for slavery.
However, attempting to maintain a U.S. presence in United Nations human rights efforts, the State Department also said the U.S. would return as an observer at this month's session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, even though it is concerned about the trajectory of discussions there. Reporting on developments, the Washington Post points out that the Bush administration withdrew HRC observers last June.
