View Full Version : US faces first scrutiny by UN rights council
The Obama Administration's skirmish with Jan Brewer is coming to fruition, the states rights dispute has been turned into an international human rights cause :munchin
The United States will come under the spotlight at the UN's top human rights assembly's for the first time over the coming week along with other countries that face scrutiny by the Human Rights Council.
Some 300 US civil liberties and community groups in the US Human Rights Network on Monday called on the Obama administration to bring "substandard human rights practices" in the United States into line with international standards.
The United States only agreed to join the Council in May 2009, after the Bush administration had shunned the body which replaced its similar though discredited predecessor, the UN human rights commission, in 2006.
The Network produced a 400-page report criticising "glaring inadequacies in the United States? human rights record," including the "discriminatory impact" of foreclosures, "widespread" racial profiling and "draconian" immigration policies.
Source: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.3fda6adee976b3a33a4faade5f6c18c d.fb1&show_article=1
Jan Brewer's August letter to Hillary Clinton:
http://www.azgovernor.gov/dms/upload/PR_082710_LetterSecretaryClinton.pdf
:munchin
International standards?! Who do these mooks think set those standards? Time to send the UN to someplace like Brussels. They might appreciate them being there and let them pay for the majority of their operating budget. I need to go to the gun show in Raleigh this month.
International standards?! Who do these mooks think set those standards?
No kidding...Looks like Mexico, Libya, China, Cuba, Russia, and a bloc of Islamic and African states will be Arizona's judge... :eek:
Some 300 US civil liberties and community groups in the US Human Rights Network on Monday called on the Obama administration to bring "substandard human rights practices" in the United States into line with international standards.
Oh please. :rolleyes: They can go pound sand.
dr. mabuse
11-02-2010, 19:56
I worked with those chimpanzees for ~ 6 1/2 years back in the 90's.
There's a reason why some locals in Africa and elsewhere call them the "United Nonsense". :rolleyes:
drymartini66
11-03-2010, 15:22
Haven't we left the UN yet?:mad:
More overly-dramatized political theater supported by an Ed Wood quality script and cast of thousands of bad actors - where can I get a refund?
Richard
Ambush Master
11-03-2010, 16:42
Ti0me to send the UN to someplace like Brussels. They might appreciate them being there and let them pay for the majority of their operating budget.
Brussels would be too good, send them to Haiti!!
drymartini66
11-03-2010, 17:13
Current UN Human Rights Council member states: Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Djibouti, Gabon, Ghana, Libya, Mauritania, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, Zambia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Japan, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Hungary, POland, Moldova, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Uruguay, Belgium, France, Norway, Turkey, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States. You be the judge.
Current UN Human Rights Council member states: Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Djibouti, Gabon, Ghana, Libya, Mauritania, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, Zambia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Japan, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Hungary, POland, Moldova, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Uruguay, Belgium, France, Norway, Turkey, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States. You be the judge.
The Whos Who of free states!
Looks like the inmates are in charge of the prison!
dr. mabuse
11-03-2010, 22:19
More overly-dramatized political theater supported by an Ed Wood quality script and cast of thousands of bad actors - where can I get a refund?
Richard
Plan 9 from Outer Space!!! :D :D
I hope the UN don't attack us with their Army...
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/11/04/united-nations-human-rights-council/?test=latestnews
Long but entertaining. This sounds like some convoluted comic play. I especially liked this part:
--The U.S. needs to sign, ratify and implement a wide number of United Nations-sponsored human rights conventions, whatever reservations various U.S. governments or courts have had to them;
-- All these treaties and conventions should be “self-executing,” meaning that no subsequent U.S. government action should be required for them to go into effect—regardless of the U.S. constitutional separation of powers, and the separation of powers between federal and state governments;
--the U.S. should have national human rights institutions to coordinate and enforce human rights compliance;
--racial, economic and social disparities are still endemic in the U.S. despite its own civil rights laws, and need to be eliminated to meet “international standards” embodied in U.N. treaties. Amnesty International, for example, charges that “racial disparities continue to exist at every stage [U.S.] in the criminal justice system,” and calls for laws to bar “racial profiling in law enforcement.”
The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, an offshoot of New York University’s law school, goes further, and argues that since 9/11, “the U.S. has institutionalized discriminatory profiling against members of Muslim, Arab, South Asian and Middle-Eastern communities.” The organization calls for federal laws against profiling “on all grounds, with no exceptions for national security and an in-depth audit of government databases/watchlists.”
--barbaric treatment of citizens by U.S. police is allegedly rife. Again according to Amnesty, U.S. police and custody officials “are rarely prosecuted for abuses,” prison conditions “remain harsh in many states,” and “electroshock weapons are widely used against individuals who do not pose a serious threat, including children, the elderly and people under the influence of drink or drugs.”
--U.S. social conditions are dismal. One submission claims, according to the U.N. summary, that 30% of the U.S. population “lacks an adequate income to meet basic needs,” while another notes that “there is an unequal access in the U.S. to basic amenities such as adequate food, shelter, work, healthcare and education. There is also a lack of affordable housing, job shortages and income insecurity, particularly among minorities and women.”
-- native peoples on American soil are badly neglected and need the protection of international treaties, and the U.S. treats immigrants and asylum-seekers badly. At least one organization recommends a ban on deporting indigenous peoples from anywhere in the Americas.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cVsS6uckfQ
:munchin
ETA:
U.N. Gives Obama a New 'Shellacking' -- Over Human Rights!
The Obama administration got a new “shellacking” this morning, this one entirely voluntary. In the name of improving America’s image abroad, it sent three top officials from the State Department to Geneva’s U.N. Human Rights Council to be questioned about America’s human rights record by the likes of Cuba, Iran, and North Korea.
This was the first so-called “universal periodic review” of human rights in the U.S. by the Council, which the Obama administration decided to join in 2009.
The move represents a striking departure from prior American foreign policy, which has been to ratify selected human rights treaties after due consideration and submit American policy-makers to recommendations based on well-conceived standards accepted by the United States.
But in the three-hour inquisition which took place this morning, Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor responded with “thanks to very many of the delegations for thoughtful comments and suggestions” shortly after Cuba said the U.S. blockade of Cuba was a “crime of genocide,” Iran “condemned and expressed its deep concern over the situation of human rights” in the United States, and North Korea said it was “concerned by systematic widespread violations committed by the United States at home and abroad.”
According to the Council’s procedure, all U.N. members are given carte blanche to comment and make recommendations to the state in the docket. But since only three hours are allotted per state, the practice has emerged of allowing approximately only the first sixty to speak.
This morning fifty-six countries lined-up for the opportunity to have at the U.S. representatives, many standing in line overnight a day ago in order to be near the top of the list. Making it to the head of the line were Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and North Korea.
Recommendations to improve the U.S. human rights record included Cuba’s advice to end “violations against migrants and mentally ill persons” and “ensure the right to food and health.”
Iran – currently poised to stone an Iranian woman for adultery – told the U.S. “effectively to combat violence against women.”
North Korea – which systematically starves a captive population – told the U.S. “to address inequalities in housing, employment and education” and “prohibit brutality…by law enforcement officials.”
Libya complained about U.S. “racism, racial discrimination and intolerance.”
In response to the many Guantanamo-related criticisms, the State Department’s top legal adviser, Harold Koh, blamed the failure to close the facility on others: “President Obama cannot close Guantanamo alone. That also involves our allies, the courts, and our Congress.”
The U.S. delegation was at pains to impress the international crowd. Esther Brimmer, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Organizations, told the assembled: “it is an honor to be in this chamber.”
She was referring to the meeting place of the U.N. Human Rights Council – the new and improved lead U.N. human rights body created by the General Assembly in 2006 over the negative vote cast by the United States. In this very chamber the Council has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all other 191 UN member states combined. Calling the chamber home, for instance, are Council members Libya, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and China.
The Obama administration has until Tuesday to decide if it accepts or rejects the recommendations. The whole list of criticisms and recommendations, as well as the U.S. response, will be put together in a document distributed globally by the U.N. for the future edification of America-bashers around the world.
Administration officials are attempting to spin the exercise as one of justifiable and cathartic mea culpa on the world stage. But the impression they really left was one of moral and cultural relativism in which American leadership has been squandered to the detriment of victims suffering egregious human rights violations worldwide.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/11/05/anne-bayefsky-america-human-rights-council-geneva-cuba-iran-north-korea/