March 31, 2009
NEW YORK (JTA) -- The United States will seek to join the U.N. Human Rights Council, reversing its policy of shunning the group.
On Tuesday, the Obama administration announced it would participate in May elections for a seat on the 47-member council.The Bush administration had withheld U.S. membership from the Geneva-based council for its failure to confront human rights abusers and its singling out of Israel for condemnation.
Since its creation in 2006 to replace the widely discredited U.N. Commission on Human Rights, the council has passed 32 resolutions; 26 have been critical of Israel, according to U.N. Watch.
More than half of the council's members fall short of basic democracy standards, according to Freedom House, a democracy watchdog group. And in the past two years the council has moved to eliminate its country-specific special experts investigating human rights abuses in Darfur, Congo, Cuba, Belarus and Liberia.
"There are so many players on the Human Rights Council that do not have our interests at heart that I think it will mobilize against the things that the United States is going to fight for," said Betty Ehrenberg, a spokeswoman for the World Jewish Congress. "I'm not sure at this moment that the Human Rights Council is free enough of its past and present difficulties and complications to make this effort fruitful at this moment."
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