The UN Laboratory Of Hatred

NY Sun:

Three European countries are mounting a campaign for two available seats on the U.N. Human Rights Council, even as the prestige of the Geneva-based body reaches a new low.

France, Britain, and Spain are lobbying the 192 U.N. member states, seeking to gain support for their claim to two available slots among the seven that are reserved for Western countries on the 47-member council. America has declined to run for membership on the council, which in the two years since its inception has faulted only Israel for human rights violations.

…

Mr. Zimeray described the first Durban conference as a “laboratory of hatred” and said it would have become the most significant event in international “political life” had it not been immediately followed by the attacks of September 11, 2001. Durban II risks the same fate, he said, and he acknowledged that the Human Rights Council “is not perfect.”

Asked why France should lend its prestige to a body that he said has an “obsession” with Israel, Mr. Zimeray said that if Western countries withdrew from the Human Rights Council and established a separate rights panel, they would create a situation like that in ancient Greece, where democracy was reserved for Athenians only.

The rest.