Bolton: "I shrunk the coalition!"
Thanks to one poster’s concerns about the UN’s new Human Rights Council, it seemed appropriate to address them here rather than in the comments section. This National Review article sums up the conservative case against the new Council as follows.
One has to wonder where such support would come from. Except for the United States, Israel and two tiny island states, virtually every nation on earth voted to approve the new UN Human Rights Council. According to this report, “The creation of the new Council was also hailed by virtually all human rights organizations.”
The National Review article also objects to the fact that the Council “puts liberal democracies side by side with genocidal despotisms as though they were equally legitimate.”
While this certainly has been true in the past, the whole idea of restructuring and creating a totally new Council was to tackle this very problem. The new Council has certain procedures to discourage the election of nations with serious human rights abuse records. These include pre-election vetting of candidate Council members, limited terms and removal from the Council by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly for member countries that commit abuses.
Since the idea behind the new Council is to bring such abuses to light and focus attention on the countries in which they occur, the likelihood of abuses being committed by Council members should be less than would be the case if there were no formal umbrella organization dedicated to monitoring human rights. In cases where Council members do commit abuses, it will be easier to put pressure on them from within the Council and to get them to live up to their human rights commitments or face sanctions or pressures from global opinion. Arguably, although it is a slow, step-by-step process, it is better than no process and its chances of success are undeniably greater than simply ignoring the problem.
In my view, the new Council offers a proactive, constructive approach to dealing with human rights abuses. The benefits of having a good human rights record should outweigh the cost of continuing such abuses. If the Council imposes sanctions and exposes offending nations to world opinion without resorting to force, it will be a positive step in the right direction. The approach is rational, designed to discourage offending nations to stop such practices, to impose sanctions where necessary and to encourage economic benefits for countries that comply with Council policy.
The NR article, however, only sees the stick, not the carrot. “Even a laughably weak eligibility criterion — that any country under U.N. sanction for human-rights violations be barred from membership — self-destructed during the negotiations.”
The article goes on to propose setting up a non-UN human rights body comprised solely of liberal democracies. One has to wonder why, when every liberal democracy in the world (except the USA) approved and voted for the new UN Human Rights Council. As many on the left argue today, there is something very unrealistic in conservative foreign policy – and this seems to be the perfect example.
Surprisingly, the article then rejects its own advice to abandon the international ship. “While it would be foolish to expect the council to do much good, we still have a stake in blocking it from taking actions and codifying new rights fundamentally opposed to our interests.”
Hmmmm.
The problem with this particular conservative analysis, it seems to me, is that it is premised on America taking unilateral action, as in the case of Iraq. Apart from the obvious lack of success of the current administration's unilateral approach to geo-politics, it seems that Mr. Bolton’s presence at the UN has also helped to shrink the U.S.’s coalition of the willing from 30-some nations in Iraq to three in the General Assembly -- Israel and two islands in the Pacific.
Three cheers for Mr. Bolton!
Considering its lack of international legitimacy for the invasion of Iraq, its own not inconsiderable list of human rights abuses, including Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, Bagram, imprisonment without trial, ghost prisoners, kidnappings, renditions, not to mention the latest allegations of civilian massacres in Iraq and virtual lack of support even among liberal democracies – the Bush administration and its apologists appear to have little credibility or political capital left beyond America's border.
There's a message for America in all this. One wonders if and when it will finally sink in.
File_Under: Human_Rights_Council; Human Rights Abuses; Bolton; Neo-Conservatism; Bush
The successor [i.e. new UN Human Rights Council] is worthy of the original — just as bad, and utterly undeserving of respect from anyone concerned about human rights. It's time for those who feel such concern, led by the U.S., to work together outside the U.N. system.
One has to wonder where such support would come from. Except for the United States, Israel and two tiny island states, virtually every nation on earth voted to approve the new UN Human Rights Council. According to this report, “The creation of the new Council was also hailed by virtually all human rights organizations.”
The National Review article also objects to the fact that the Council “puts liberal democracies side by side with genocidal despotisms as though they were equally legitimate.”
While this certainly has been true in the past, the whole idea of restructuring and creating a totally new Council was to tackle this very problem. The new Council has certain procedures to discourage the election of nations with serious human rights abuse records. These include pre-election vetting of candidate Council members, limited terms and removal from the Council by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly for member countries that commit abuses.
Since the idea behind the new Council is to bring such abuses to light and focus attention on the countries in which they occur, the likelihood of abuses being committed by Council members should be less than would be the case if there were no formal umbrella organization dedicated to monitoring human rights. In cases where Council members do commit abuses, it will be easier to put pressure on them from within the Council and to get them to live up to their human rights commitments or face sanctions or pressures from global opinion. Arguably, although it is a slow, step-by-step process, it is better than no process and its chances of success are undeniably greater than simply ignoring the problem.
In my view, the new Council offers a proactive, constructive approach to dealing with human rights abuses. The benefits of having a good human rights record should outweigh the cost of continuing such abuses. If the Council imposes sanctions and exposes offending nations to world opinion without resorting to force, it will be a positive step in the right direction. The approach is rational, designed to discourage offending nations to stop such practices, to impose sanctions where necessary and to encourage economic benefits for countries that comply with Council policy.
The NR article, however, only sees the stick, not the carrot. “Even a laughably weak eligibility criterion — that any country under U.N. sanction for human-rights violations be barred from membership — self-destructed during the negotiations.”
The article goes on to propose setting up a non-UN human rights body comprised solely of liberal democracies. One has to wonder why, when every liberal democracy in the world (except the USA) approved and voted for the new UN Human Rights Council. As many on the left argue today, there is something very unrealistic in conservative foreign policy – and this seems to be the perfect example.
Surprisingly, the article then rejects its own advice to abandon the international ship. “While it would be foolish to expect the council to do much good, we still have a stake in blocking it from taking actions and codifying new rights fundamentally opposed to our interests.”
Hmmmm.
The problem with this particular conservative analysis, it seems to me, is that it is premised on America taking unilateral action, as in the case of Iraq. Apart from the obvious lack of success of the current administration's unilateral approach to geo-politics, it seems that Mr. Bolton’s presence at the UN has also helped to shrink the U.S.’s coalition of the willing from 30-some nations in Iraq to three in the General Assembly -- Israel and two islands in the Pacific.
Three cheers for Mr. Bolton!
Considering its lack of international legitimacy for the invasion of Iraq, its own not inconsiderable list of human rights abuses, including Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, Bagram, imprisonment without trial, ghost prisoners, kidnappings, renditions, not to mention the latest allegations of civilian massacres in Iraq and virtual lack of support even among liberal democracies – the Bush administration and its apologists appear to have little credibility or political capital left beyond America's border.
There's a message for America in all this. One wonders if and when it will finally sink in.
File_Under: Human_Rights_Council; Human Rights Abuses; Bolton; Neo-Conservatism; Bush
posted by J. DeVincent at 3:36 AM
4 Comments:
I suppose, if you ignore my arguments, you could call it insightful. This NR article is certainly on a par with other conservative commentary these days.
For example, Townhall.com sent me one of their all-advertising/no content e-mails, in which they are purportedly promoting the "conservative message."
The titles range from Michael Savage's "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder" to "Silent Witness: The Untold Story of Terri Schiavo's Death" by Mark Fuhrman.
Mark Fuhrman? Would that be the same guy who helped screw up O.J. Simpson's conviction -- that "other" LA Cop, Rascal? Add Ann Coulture and Arie Fleischer to the list and this conservative line up of authors must look like a conservative's dream team to the true believers.
Conservative thinking sure has come a long way from the days of Edmund Berke. LOL!
Matrix, shouldn't that be Edmund Burke? :)
Thanks for the comparison with the New Left, but you flatter me. I'm not an ideologue, like some people I know. Hmmm.
In any case, no one has all the answers, not even Matrixx8. :)
What's this "by golly" stuff? Boy, you really are outdated, Rascal. Is this a question of age or simply political gambit to induce opponents into thinking that even the "better" sort of conservate is stilled trapped in a linguistic purgatory -- a type of political correctness of the right?
As for your other comments, thanks. I'll give them the consideration they're worth.
Stay tuned for my new Hirshi Ali comment. You might be surprised.
Cheers.
Matrixx 8
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