UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Ban challenged the U.N. Human Rights Council yesterday to “live up to its promise,” but diplomats and observers in Geneva predicted the rights body would fail once more to condemn violations in any country except Israel.

In its fourth session, which opened yesterday, members of the council are expected to reject adverse findings from a fact-finding mission to Sudan. The council has yet to decide whether any human rights violations have occurred in Darfur, although Washington has called the violence in the Sudanese region genocide.

The 47-member Geneva-based body has already singled out Israel for condemnation in eight resolutions and is preparing four new resolutions against the Jewish state in its current session.

Last week, America decided not to seek a seat on the council, a move seen in Geneva as a diplomatic slight intended to discredit the top human rights organ of the United Nations. But in a video message broadcast to council members yesterday, Mr. Ban indicated that the burden of proof is on the council.

“The world is watching to see whether this young council will live up to its promise,” Mr. Ban said. He also said he hopes that by June, when the council celebrates its first anniversary, “you will be able to examine the record and performance of all countries, on all human rights, at regular intervals.”

But the council has already rejected reports on human rights conditions in countries such as Cuba. An automatic majority of Muslim and Arab countries recently threw out a report on the war between Israel and Hezbollah last summer because it detailed violations committed by both sides, rather than by Israel alone.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the pro-Israel organization UN Watch have criticized Washington’s decision not to seek a seat, as have most Geneva-based diplomats. “It is regrettable not to have a major player within the council,” the council’s president, Mexican Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba, said, according to the Associated Press.

The director of UN Watch, Hillel Neuer, denounced the council’s record, but he said that rather than rejecting the council, America should fight it from within. “Who is going to lead the fight, Canada?” Mr. Neuer asked. Ottawa was ostracized in Geneva after objecting to one-sided resolutions on Israel, he said, and will refrain from doing so in the future.

The ranking Republican member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, said in a statement that Washington made a “wise decision.” The council’s condemnation of Israel and its record on Darfur, North Korea, Cuba, and Burma show that it is “rapidly consigning its work to irrelevance and scorn,” she said. Yesterday, a mission the council dispatched to Sudan reported that Khartoum failed to protect villagers and “itself orchestrated and participated” in crimes in Darfur. Sudan barred the mission’s four members from entering the country.

Mr. Neuer, however, predicted that the council would reject the findings. Instead, he said, it will pass four resolutions in the current session condemning Israel, including one denouncing restrictions on access to Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque.