UN Human Rights Council Buries Debate on Chinese Atrocities at Xinjiang

An embarrassing loss to Communist China at the United Nations’ top human rights arbiter will not change the Biden administration’s faith in its utility for America’s values and interests. Will Congress step in?Earlier Thursday the Geneva-based UN human rights council voted down an American-backed proposal to debate a report detailing the horrors at China’s Xinjiang region, where Uighurs and other minorities are held in concentration camps in unspeakable conditions.Torture, medical experiments, forced incarceration, humiliation, and dehumanization were detailed in a report issued by the office of the human rights commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, in the final hour of her tenure. Yet, Beijing managed to block any debate of the report.Nineteen of the council’s members, including top rights violators Cuba, Venezuela, and Mauritania, voted with Communist China to block debate. America, Germany, France, and Japan were among the 17 yes votes. Eleven countries, including India, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, abstained. The proposed debate over Xinjiang — a poster child for human rights violations — would have been the first time Communist China is put on the council’s agenda. To make the debate more palatable for countries under Beijing’s influence, America removed from the proposed resolution any hint of condemnation. In contrast, the Geneva-based UN organ passes four harshly-worded condemnations of Israel each year. The Jewish state is the only country with a permanent agenda item dedicated to it. This spring, the council named three members to a new, open-ended commission of inquiry to investigate Israel in perpetuity. America is top financier of the human rights council’s budget, to the tune of over $25 million a year — but it was not always so.The council was founded in 2006 to replace the commission on human rights. Founded in 1946, that commission was inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt’s notion of universal rights. It did not live up to that ideal. Too many of the commission’s members were themselves violators, and it was overly obsessed with Israel. Congressman Tom Lantos called it “Orwellian in its character.”The 2006 reforms that abolished the old commission and created the new 47-member council were supposed to fix the old body’s flaws. Yet, today’s council is yet again dominated by countries that scoff at the mere idea of human rights, and Israel remains its top target. President George W. Bush foresaw that eventuality and declined to join the newly-formed council. President Obama, however, argued that as a member America could nudge the council and make it more accountable. America rejoined the council, but in 2018 President Trump once again bolted out. “When a so-called Human Rights Council cannot bring itself to address the massive abuses in Venezuela and Iran, and it welcomes the Democratic Republic of Congo as a new member,” Secretary of State Pompeo said at the time, it “ceases to be worthy of its name. Such a council, in fact, damages the cause of human rights.” Then, as one of its first acts as president, Mr. Biden rejoined the council. “We know that the Council has the potential to be an important forum for those fighting tyranny and injustice around the world,” a State Department official told reporters. “By being present at the table, we seek to reform it and ensure it can live up to that potential.” Well, when it came to debating Ms. Bachelet’s report, Beijing went to the mat, calling up favors and issuing threats in various capitals. America, on the other hand, only half-heartedly insisted that a debate must be conducted.One of today’s abstention voters, Argentina, reportedly concluded it would suffer “no collateral damage” from Washington if it failed to join the democracies in supporting the proposed debate on Beijing’s atrocities. In January, bipartisan groups at the Senate and the House urged the administration to partially cut funding for the council. Taxpayers, they argued, should not be forced to shill for the anti-Israel commission of inquiry. Today’s fiasco — a loss to Beijing at Geneva — may well encourage others to urge even further cuts, and perhaps scrap funding for the rights council altogether. “I completely disagree,” a frequent critic of the council, UN Watch’s executive director, Hillel Neuer, says. “For too many years our democracies refrained from introducing resolutions unless success was guaranteed, and the result was that dictatorships were never put on the defensive,” he told the Sun. Yet, the human rights council remains ready to condemn an Israeli “war crime” each time a sparrow suffers a heart attack above Gaza. At the same time it refuses to even discuss unspeakable horrors committed by Beijing’s Communist regime. America shouldn’t lend prestige and funds or be a member of that club.

UN Human Rights Council Buries Debate on Chinese Atrocities at Xinjiang

More from the New York Sun

Can America End Tehran’s Nuclear Aspirations Without Boots on the Ground?

CBS News Reporter Who Denounced MAGA ‘Lies’ About 2020 Election Quits Over Network’s Balanced January 6 Coverage: Report

Democrats To Introduce Legislation Explicitly Banning Prediction Markets Related to War and Death

More from the New York Sun

Can America End Tehran’s Nuclear Aspirations Without Boots on the Ground?

CBS News Reporter Who Denounced MAGA ‘Lies’ About 2020 Election Quits Over Network’s Balanced January 6 Coverage: Report

Democrats To Introduce Legislation Explicitly Banning Prediction Markets Related to War and Death

‘CNN Is Not a Serious Organization’: Embattled Network Denounced for Sympathetic Coverage of ISIS Terror Suspects

‘Say Nothing’: Gerry Adams, Alleged IRA Commander, Dons Bulletproof Vest, Denies Ordering Bombings That Shook Britain

Apple News Makes Tiny Increase in Conservative Publications Featured on Top Stories List After Pressure from Trump Administration

American Missiles Pulled From South Korea To Buttress Campaign Against Iran

Extracting Enchantment From the Austen and Brontë Production Industries