[National Post-Canada] Glenn Cohen - On June 30 former Canadian Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour's four-year term as UN high commissioner for human rights ended. From the record compiled by the UN Human Rights Council under Arbour's direction, you'd think there was only one major human rights violator in the entire world: Israel. In 2006, over 46% of the council's resolutions were directed at, and critical of, the Jewish state. In 2006, only four UNHRC resolutions dealt with the situation in Darfur. In that same year, the council was silent on Burma, Cuba, China and all of the Arab states in the Middle East except Iraq. Under her watch, UNHRC members China, Libya, Iran and Cuba systematically blocked almost all critical scrutiny of any state behavior but Israel's. Israel doesn't need the UNHRC for its daily dose of censure; the newspapers published in that country do a fine job of reproaching their government every day. But it is not so in Iran, or Russia, or China, or Burma or Cuba.
2008-10-31 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive