March 24, 2006

Wrong move on rights, The Baltimore Sun

Tom Lantos

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.council24mar24,0,4223336.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines

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When members of Congress visit the UN to discuss the state of UN reform it would be helpful if they got the facts straight. This article states: "For the first time, membership in a U.N. body will require meeting specific criteria." This is not correct. There is not a single specific criterion that is required for membership in the Council. The article states: "The U.S., working with our allies, can challenge each and every bogus council candidate and block them by recruiting sufficient support." This is not correct. The U.S. and its allies cannot block every bogus council candidate. It is 100% certain that China and Cuba will be elected. The likelihood of other bogus human rights candidates being elected is also assured - the only issue is how many. The article states "It creates a unique opportunity to reclaim the United Nations' human rights mechanism from those forces that have hijacked the commission and used it to launch a vicious and systematic attack against the democratic state of Israel." This is not correct. The Council can call a special session with only 30% of the members' approval. (The previous Commission required 50% support for an emergency session.) This is certain to result in more emergency sessions on Israel, not less. Furthermore, the proportional representation of members of the Asian regional group (which excludes Israel from membership though it is geographically entitled to belong), and which contains the highest number of states from the Organization of the Islamic Conference, increases with the Council. At the same time, the proportional representation of members from the Western regional group, decreases with the Council. This is certain to increase the vitrolic and discriminatory treatment of Israel, not reduce it. One can only hope that Congress is not interested in spending taxpayer dollars on the pretense of UN reform.