According to the Washington Post, U.S. to Join U.N. Human Rights Council
The Obama administration decided Tuesday to join the U.N. Human Rights Council, reversing a decision by the Bush administration to shun the United Nations’ premier rights body to protest the influence of repressive states, according to U.N. diplomats and rights activists.
The United States will participate in elections in May for one of three seats on the 47-member council, joining a slate that includes Belgium, Norway and New Zealand. New Zealand has offered to step aside to allow the United States to run unchallenged, according to a U.S. official.
As Anne Bayefsky put it, the current administration is following A Foreign Policy of Obsequiousness.
Ralph Peter has a list itemizing O’s foreign failures. Add this one to the list.
Related reading:
The Sword of Islam, the Pen of the UN
Here’s the roster of UN Human Rights Council members.
Oh, so the US can now lower itself to the stellar standards of the Sudan and Cuba?
Yeah… this is a great move (*rolls eyes*).
The Us already went Lower than Cuba and Sudan when they elected Obama.
What an insult !
To Cuba that is.
Maybe Uncle Sam should stop harboring “South America’s Bin Laden” (terrorist & Cuban exile) Luis Posada Carilles who blew up a Cubana airliner in 1976.
Mike: There were supposed to be two taped confessions regarding LPC’s actions. One of them has already been proven to be a lie; it was played for the US congress and there was no confession. The second was a NYT interview granted to Anna Louise Bardach, not only has she refused to release the tape, but she’s the one who created a huge problem for the New Republic article where Mas-Canosa was accused of being a drug-trafficker. Not only did TNR have to apologize to MC but they had to hand over 125 000 dollars to keep the case out of court.
The Cuban government never allowed the body of the plane to be raised for examination, the only evidence that could be worked with is what floated to the surface and the British government examined that, their conclusion being that the bomb could not have been placed in the rest-room the way the Cuban government claims, it had to have been in the baggage area-the door to the rr floated up intact-but the Cuban government admitts that it could not have been planted in the baggage area due to security measures.
Then why does the US government refuse to truly defend LPC? Why do they keep trying to get him expelled from the US? I have no idea, it seems to be a purely political decision, based on the Central-American conflict of the 80’s, a typical case of hanging your own out to dry, but there is no real evidence to keep accusing him of being responsable for those bombings, not unless real evidence is produced.
Mike Says:
What an insult !
To Cuba that is.
Maybe Uncle Sam should stop harboring “South America’s Bin Laden” (terrorist & Cuban exile) Luis Posada Carilles who blew up a Cubana airliner in 1976.”
I’ll see your one alleged terrorist and raise you the whole Cuban prison system, for housing political prisoners in places like Boniato.
And even if this Carilles person is truly a terrorist, I just fail to see how the US actions regarding one man somehow makes the US more morally deficient than Cuba, considering what that government does to its own people. But hey, maybe I’m unfashionable like that. At best, you’ve identified an individual fault; the rest of us here are talking about systemic issues regarding human rights. On that, Cuba is far behind the US. But feel free to equivocate on that point.
What Mike has ignored is that very few nations of the West will turn over a citizens or residents when they have been acquitted, twice in Venezuela, in the country demanding his extradition. We have no formal relations with Cuba thus no extradition claims can be made. He may very well have plotted the bombings but a military and then a civil court in Venezuela exonerated him. Something about the 5th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution covers his current situation. Which neither Mike nor Chavez seem to have read lately.
The Tready of Extradition between the US and Venezuela is also problematic for the US considering there are specific exceptions that would make transferring Carilles illegal. Article I mentions he can be deported if he has been convicted or indicted only not for a retrial. Article III excludes political crimes while under Aticle V the ten year statute of limitations of crimes in Venezuela has already expired. Oddly enough the whole issue is fairly moot for two reasons, Venezuela has stipulated that its common law supercedes all treaty obligations and that Article VII neither country is required to surrender its citizens or residents if it choses not too.
http://www.oas.org/juridico/mla/en/traites/en_traites-ext-usa-ven.pdf