Israel Matzav

What a farce! US to submit its human rights record to UN 'Human Rights Council'

Just when you thought it couldn't get any crazier.... The United States is soliciting comments about its human rights record as part of the UN 'Human Rights Council's 'universal review process.'

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that the State Department is soliciting comments from citizens, advocacy groups and other non-governmental organizations on the human rights record of the United States.

“Human rights are universal, but their experience is local. This is why we are committed to holding everyone to the same standard, including ourselves,” Clinton told a press briefing at the State Department, where she unveiled the “2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.”

Clinton said the U.S. is now gathering facts on its own record because – as a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council – it is participating in the UNHRC’s “universal periodic review” process.

...

“In the fall, we will present a report (to the UNHRC) based on the input of citizens and NGOs, gathered online and in face-to-face meetings across the country attended by senior government officials,” Clinton said on Thursday.

“Assessing opportunities for progress and soliciting citizen engagement is one way that we demonstrate our commitment in word and deed to the basic principles that guide us toward a more perfect union and a more peaceful world,” she added.

Following Clinton’s remarks, Michael Posner, assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor, took questions from reporters. One asked how the U.S. would defend itself against critics who say the U.S. “does not have clean hands, particularly when it comes to the criminal justice system.”

“I doubt that other governments are going to say things that people in this society don’t say every day,” Posner said.

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In addition to the United States, 15 countries will undergo UPR by the U.N. Human Rights Council this year: They include Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mauritania, Lebanon, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Andorra, Bulgaria and Croatia.

So Libya, Saudi Arabia and - inshallah - Iran will have the opportunity to examine a US human rights record that will be heavily criticized by the Left during these public hearings. I'm sure that Libya is running the same kind of hearings all across its country. Right....

Only two of those countries will actually be criticized: The US and Honduras. Bet on it.

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:00 AM