A new proposal to create a United Nations body ensuring respect for human rights to replace the existing, discredited Human Rights Commission is wholly inadequate, said John Bolton, American ambassador to the United Nations, yesterday. He indicated that America was unlikely to endorse the new body.

The proposal, circulated yesterday to U.N. members by the president of the General Assembly, Jan Eliasson, would create a Human Rights Council designed to prevent human rights violators from becoming members.

However, its critics said the new structure will not address some of the problems that have allowed blatant human rights violators like Cuba, Sudan, and Zimbabwe to become members of the Geneva-based commission, and would allow the new council to dedicate a disproportionate amount of time to bashing America and Israel.

The proposal, Mr. Bolton said, “does not meet the standards set by the secretary-general himself.” He added, “The strongest argument in favor of this draft is that it’s not as bad as it could be.” He said he hoped for “real international negotiations,” without the help of Mr. Eliasson, who has overseen consultations on the new council.

Mr. Eliasson, however, urged a quick vote, and Secretary-General Annan told reporters, “Now is the time for a decision.”

Originally, Mr. Annan envisioned a small body. The proposal, however, merely manages to shrink the committee from 53 members to 47. It also maintains the principle of regional proportionality in selecting members. The group that includes most Western countries will be represented by only seven seats, as opposed to the 13 allotted for both the African and the Asian groups that include the bulk of Arab and Muslim countries.

“Human rights should never be seen as a north-south issue,” Mr. Eliasson told The New York Sun. But critics say the system of selecting members will ensure that regions where human rights violations are common will be well-represented.

The new structure also offers no sure mechanism to prevent countries with poor human rights records becoming members. While Mr. Annan hoped to set a bar of a two-thirds majority vote before a member could be elected, yesterday’s draft calls for a vote by a simple majority at the General Assembly.

Each council member would be elected for three years and could serve for only two terms. But a two-thirds majority of the assembly will be required to remove from the council any member “that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights.”