The UN created the Human Rights Council earlier this year to replace the old discredited Human Rights Commission, but it’s hard to see any improvement.  The Council has now decided to dissuade all UN human rights bodies from naming particular countries as violators of human rights.  Can you say “cover-up”?

A UN General Assembly committee has voted to discourage UN human rights bodies from condemning any country on human rights, despite objections to the measure from the U.S. and many European countries.

The draft resolution — sponsored by Belarus and Uzbekistan, both of which have been accused of serious human rights abuses — was approved by the assembly's human rights committee on a 77-63 vote, with 26 abstentions. It now goes to the full 192-member General Assembly for a final vote.

Belarus and Uzbekistan, the resolution’s co-sponsors, have the worst records of repression and tyranny of all former Soviet bloc countries.  If the UN were sane (a big “if”, I know), they would not be assigned seats on a body charged with monitoring human rights.

Its key provision stresses the need to avoid “country-specific resolutions on the situation of human rights” and the “exploitation of human rights for political purposes.”

In a spirit of good faith, no doubt, the Council has made consistently made one exception to the no-names policy.  Take a wild guess which country that might be.

The new Human Rights Council in Geneva, which earlier this year replaced the discredited Human Rights Commission, has met three times to pass resolutions condemning Israel but hasn't dealt with human rights in Myanmar, North Korea or Sudan, Mr. [US Ambassador John] Bolton said.

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