The UN Human Rights Council is not reform

The United Nations General Assembly has created a 47 member Human Rights Council to replace the 53-member Commission on Human Rights. The Commission was set up in 1947 to censure countries abusing their own citizens, but had some of the world's most notorious rights abusers among its members.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed the new council last year, as part of UN reforms, but I thought we were going to get a much smaller membership. This is not reform, it is merely a rename with a slightly smaller membership and will not prevent countries with dodgy human rights records getting on the Council.

Lets hope that states like Cuba, Sudan, China, or Zimbabwe, who are members of the Commission do not get elected to the new Council. Likewise Nepal, and Saudi Arabia. It remains to be seen whether the US will seek election on the Council.

Members will be elected on May 9 and the Council will meet three times a year for 10 weeks, in contrast to the Commission's annual meeting.

The New York Times says the Council is an "ugly sham".Others say it is flawed as:

It unacceptably lowers the number of votes needed to elect the members of the Council so that notorious human rights violators such as Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe are not excluded.

Member nations that violate human rights can be suspended only by a two-thirds agreement of the General Assembly -- half of which failed to raise a red flag last year over Sudan's violations.

The Western Regional Group, which includes the United States and other human rights supporters, will be less influential with fewer votes, making it even more difficult to pass effective human rights resolutions.

Elected countries are only permitted to serve two year terms before rotating off of the Council. Human rights supporters therefore would be ineligible for Council membership every six years.