5 ms·

US quits 'biased' UN human rights council

60 points by drexlspivey 8y ago

hulton 8y ago
Good for the US. The UN, as well as the human rights council, is oftentimes ineffective. This can be observed countless times from UN Watch's content. Another recent example would be the speeches given by Mosab Hassan Yousef as well.
neves 8y ago
Sad how has changed the Country that represents democracy and freedom, the first great democracy of modern era.
- r00fus 8y ago
  It's version 1.26 of this republic. Perhaps, a la française, we should look to a newer version. (France claims to be on version 5). Constitutional convention anyone?
  - throwawaymaroon 8y ago
    I'm not having a convention with Trump supporters in it.
- mkempe 8y ago
  The USA are a republic, not a democracy. The founding fathers expressed repeatedly their utter revulsion for democracy as a political system, and by design created a non-democratic republic -- one designed to limit the powers of the State and the influence of mobs in order to better secure our natural rights.
rayiner 8y ago
The UN is a great example of why you can’t have democratic institutions where the constituents have fundamentally different values. Saudi was recently the head of the HRC: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/28/why-one-of-the-worlds-worst-human-rights-offenders-is-leading-a-un-human-rights-panel/?utm_term=.a0b9d42f47fb https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/28/why-o...
- dangero 8y ago
  Yeah this strikes me as similar to bill naming. I call the bill "Protect Children Act" -- Now anyone who votes 'no' must be against protecting children regardless of what the bill says. Most people can't be bothered to actually read the bill. I can't honestly say either way if this human rights council is something we should be members of or not, but leaving sure makes for bad press.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  There is value in naming such countries to head up the HRC as well, it focuses the spotlight on them and hopefully - not necessarily - forces them to at least try to live up to some standards. The US withdrawing from the HRC basically says 'we do not care about human rights' to the world. As if the last couple of days of imagery from the Southern border would require any further explanation.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    Disagree. It just as easily could say "we do not think that your council actually does anything useful about human rights".
  - DanAndersen 8y ago
    >The US withdrawing from the HRC basically says 'we do not care about human rights' to the world. Similarly, voting against the PATRIOT Act basically says 'we do not care about patriotism' to the country.
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  This fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of the UN. It's not supposed to be a democratic institution; the founders knew that if it were, a lot of really awful world leaders wouldn't bother showing up. It's supposed to be one where everyone has a spot at the table, the theory being that it is better in the long run if there is an official channel for dialogue between all countries. If the UN ever became a purely democratic organization, a bunch of countries would leave and never come back, to the considerable detriment of worldwide peace. You may not like it, but that's what the goal has always been.
WisNorCan 8y ago
I used to be an independent having voted for both Republicans and Democrats. I have given up on the Republicans (Trump, Cruz, Ryan). I will vote non-Republican up and down the ballot. Hopefully, the policies will be reversible. I’ll be interested to see how independents behave in the mid-terms.
jimjimjim 8y ago
Sad.
- sctb 8y ago
  Could you please start posting informative things? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - jimjimjim 8y ago
    Sorry, I was in the process of writing a long form answer about how the US has lost it's ability to claim the moral highground and it's ability to admonish other countries, claiming the truth, justice and the american way. And also a paragraph or two on how those committing a 'wrong' often view people telling them they are wrong as being biased. but then I thought, hmm, the current president's style of interacting is a cheap, emotive, sound bite to appeal to his audience, so I thought I would respond in a manner similar to that. have a nice day.
    - jimjimjim 8y ago
      hmm, remind me to never try to explain or apologize for anything anymore. maybe an attitude of doubling-down and arguing is the only valid approach these days.
  - dbasedweeb 8y ago
    Off this topic, Is this article flagged for being politics, or some other reason? With a few exceptions the discussion seemed substantive.
    - sctb 8y ago
      Users are almost certainly flagging it for being pure politics, which is off topic.
paulkearney 8y ago
There is the old adage of 'better to be in the tent peeing out as opposed to being outside peeing in.' This action feels better described as 'taking a dump on the tent while blaming the tent'
jacquesm 8y ago
Incredible how much damage a single individual can do to the world. So much for checks-and-balances, I've seen people argue over and over again that no matter what the 'checks and balances' will straighten things out and will prevent the worst. The United States is losing stature in the world day by day and with at least another 2.5 years of this madness ahead there is no telling how bad things are going to get. I'm certainly not counting on anybody suddenly growing a backbone and setting some limits, if that were to happen you would expect it to have happened by now.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  This is people "growing a backbone and setting some limits". The system has actually held better than I expected. There'd be even less damage if Clinton, Bush, and Obama hadn't progressively neutered Congress (and if Congress hadn't progressively become useless). I hope (somewhat unrealistically) that Congress will look at the current situation and try to reverse some of the damage of the last two or three decades...
- ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
  There are already checks and balances. Unfortunately Congress and a sizeable portion of the public are with him. He is not a dictator, he legitimately won the election and I can see good support for him on my Facebook "friends"
  - spython 8y ago
    Not to compare the two, but Adolf Hitler also got into power pretty much legitimately. He was elected, and the Enabling Act of 1933 that gave him the power to enact laws passed Reichstag and Reichsrat and was signed by the president. You can reach dictatorship in legal ways. Being abolished may be seen as an inherent design feature of democracies.
    - abduhl 8y ago
      I'm not a Hitler expert, but I didn't know he was elected. What position did he get elected to prior to the Enabling Act giving the Nazis power? Is it comparable to being elected President in the US?
fzeroracer 8y ago
It's certainly an opportune time for the US to leave the human rights council. Right as we're in the middle of our own human rights crisis due to the growing insanity of the Trump admin.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mullingitover 8y ago
People are pointing the finger at Saudi Arabia on the Council, but the US perpetrated torture in the Bush administration. The difference is that we brought the torturers to justice, they were tried and convicted and we swore never to do that again. Just kidding, we did none of the above and the person who ran the torture program is now the head of the CIA.
- nkoren 8y ago
  Aaaaah! You got me!
nkoren 8y ago
Well, if it's Trump's position that countries which egregiously violate human rights shouldn't be on the council... I guess this is a good start?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
pythonistic 8y ago
The US and it's relations with the UN were a focus of one of my senior seminars in History (1995). I'm a programmer, not a political scientist or attorney, so read this critically. In short: * The UN Human Rights Council declares specific Human Rights. Countries choose to accept them or not. * The US has a Constitution which defines specific limitations on the power of government. Rather than granting rights, there are limitations placed on what government can do. The Bill of Rights amends the Constitution to describe specific rights in some cases granted to citizens and specific limitations that the federal government has when dealing with citizens. There's a fundamental disconnect in "governments grant these rights to people" versus "people inherently have rights and these are the curbs we put around them." An even bigger impediment is that the UN HRC would supersede the US Congress: these changes to the US Constitution and laws would be imposed without a treaty or legislative input. A committee in an extra-national organization (which has a history of, at times, not working well with the United States) would be imposing regulations on the US. Imagine one of our hard-working Congressmen abrogating power in favor of declarations from a UN committee. For the UN HRC to have any impact on the United States, we'd need to amend our Constitution to grant power to an international organization, or establish a treaty to implement its recommendations. Importantly, we'd need to change the fundamental concept by which citizens have power and rights and government is restricted. (And I'm ignoring _Gibbons v. Ogden_ (1824) and the expansion of the Interstate Commerce Clause and Federal regulation throughout the 20th century.)
seorphates 8y ago
I'm disturbed how "human rights" somehow equates to mandatory acceptance of geo-political agendas. I'm even more disturbed that ""hypocritical and self-serving" and "makes a mockery of human rights"" is now a place called home.

60 points by drexlspivey 8y ago

Good for the US. The UN, as well as the human rights council, is oftentimes ineffective. This can be observed countless times from UN Watch's content. Another recent example would be the speeches given by Mosab Hassan Yousef as well.

neves 8y ago

Sad how has changed the Country that represents democracy and freedom, the first great democracy of modern era.

r00fus 8y ago
It's version 1.26 of this republic. Perhaps, a la française, we should look to a newer version. (France claims to be on version 5). Constitutional convention anyone?
- throwawaymaroon 8y ago
  I'm not having a convention with Trump supporters in it.
mkempe 8y ago
The USA are a republic, not a democracy. The founding fathers expressed repeatedly their utter revulsion for democracy as a political system, and by design created a non-democratic republic -- one designed to limit the powers of the State and the influence of mobs in order to better secure our natural rights.

rayiner 8y ago

The UN is a great example of why you can’t have democratic institutions where the constituents have fundamentally different values. Saudi was recently the head of the HRC: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/28/why-one-of-the-worlds-worst-human-rights-offenders-is-leading-a-un-human-rights-panel/?utm_term=.a0b9d42f47fb https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/28/why-o...

dangero 8y ago
Yeah this strikes me as similar to bill naming. I call the bill "Protect Children Act" -- Now anyone who votes 'no' must be against protecting children regardless of what the bill says. Most people can't be bothered to actually read the bill. I can't honestly say either way if this human rights council is something we should be members of or not, but leaving sure makes for bad press.
jacquesm 8y ago
There is value in naming such countries to head up the HRC as well, it focuses the spotlight on them and hopefully - not necessarily - forces them to at least try to live up to some standards. The US withdrawing from the HRC basically says 'we do not care about human rights' to the world. As if the last couple of days of imagery from the Southern border would require any further explanation.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  Disagree. It just as easily could say "we do not think that your council actually does anything useful about human rights".
- DanAndersen 8y ago
  >The US withdrawing from the HRC basically says 'we do not care about human rights' to the world. Similarly, voting against the PATRIOT Act basically says 'we do not care about patriotism' to the country.
Analemma_ 8y ago
This fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of the UN. It's not supposed to be a democratic institution; the founders knew that if it were, a lot of really awful world leaders wouldn't bother showing up. It's supposed to be one where everyone has a spot at the table, the theory being that it is better in the long run if there is an official channel for dialogue between all countries. If the UN ever became a purely democratic organization, a bunch of countries would leave and never come back, to the considerable detriment of worldwide peace. You may not like it, but that's what the goal has always been.

WisNorCan 8y ago

I used to be an independent having voted for both Republicans and Democrats. I have given up on the Republicans (Trump, Cruz, Ryan). I will vote non-Republican up and down the ballot. Hopefully, the policies will be reversible. I’ll be interested to see how independents behave in the mid-terms.

jimjimjim 8y ago

Sad.

sctb 8y ago
Could you please start posting informative things? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jimjimjim 8y ago
  Sorry, I was in the process of writing a long form answer about how the US has lost it's ability to claim the moral highground and it's ability to admonish other countries, claiming the truth, justice and the american way. And also a paragraph or two on how those committing a 'wrong' often view people telling them they are wrong as being biased. but then I thought, hmm, the current president's style of interacting is a cheap, emotive, sound bite to appeal to his audience, so I thought I would respond in a manner similar to that. have a nice day.
  - jimjimjim 8y ago
    hmm, remind me to never try to explain or apologize for anything anymore. maybe an attitude of doubling-down and arguing is the only valid approach these days.
- dbasedweeb 8y ago
  Off this topic, Is this article flagged for being politics, or some other reason? With a few exceptions the discussion seemed substantive.
  - sctb 8y ago
    Users are almost certainly flagging it for being pure politics, which is off topic.

paulkearney 8y ago

There is the old adage of 'better to be in the tent peeing out as opposed to being outside peeing in.' This action feels better described as 'taking a dump on the tent while blaming the tent'

jacquesm 8y ago

Incredible how much damage a single individual can do to the world. So much for checks-and-balances, I've seen people argue over and over again that no matter what the 'checks and balances' will straighten things out and will prevent the worst. The United States is losing stature in the world day by day and with at least another 2.5 years of this madness ahead there is no telling how bad things are going to get. I'm certainly not counting on anybody suddenly growing a backbone and setting some limits, if that were to happen you would expect it to have happened by now.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
This is people "growing a backbone and setting some limits". The system has actually held better than I expected. There'd be even less damage if Clinton, Bush, and Obama hadn't progressively neutered Congress (and if Congress hadn't progressively become useless). I hope (somewhat unrealistically) that Congress will look at the current situation and try to reverse some of the damage of the last two or three decades...
ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
There are already checks and balances. Unfortunately Congress and a sizeable portion of the public are with him. He is not a dictator, he legitimately won the election and I can see good support for him on my Facebook "friends"
- spython 8y ago
  Not to compare the two, but Adolf Hitler also got into power pretty much legitimately. He was elected, and the Enabling Act of 1933 that gave him the power to enact laws passed Reichstag and Reichsrat and was signed by the president. You can reach dictatorship in legal ways. Being abolished may be seen as an inherent design feature of democracies.
  - abduhl 8y ago
    I'm not a Hitler expert, but I didn't know he was elected. What position did he get elected to prior to the Enabling Act giving the Nazis power? Is it comparable to being elected President in the US?

fzeroracer 8y ago

It's certainly an opportune time for the US to leave the human rights council. Right as we're in the middle of our own human rights crisis due to the growing insanity of the Trump admin.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

mullingitover 8y ago

People are pointing the finger at Saudi Arabia on the Council, but the US perpetrated torture in the Bush administration. The difference is that we brought the torturers to justice, they were tried and convicted and we swore never to do that again. Just kidding, we did none of the above and the person who ran the torture program is now the head of the CIA.

nkoren 8y ago
Aaaaah! You got me!

nkoren 8y ago

Well, if it's Trump's position that countries which egregiously violate human rights shouldn't be on the council... I guess this is a good start?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

pythonistic 8y ago

The US and it's relations with the UN were a focus of one of my senior seminars in History (1995). I'm a programmer, not a political scientist or attorney, so read this critically. In short: * The UN Human Rights Council declares specific Human Rights. Countries choose to accept them or not. * The US has a Constitution which defines specific limitations on the power of government. Rather than granting rights, there are limitations placed on what government can do. The Bill of Rights amends the Constitution to describe specific rights in some cases granted to citizens and specific limitations that the federal government has when dealing with citizens. There's a fundamental disconnect in "governments grant these rights to people" versus "people inherently have rights and these are the curbs we put around them." An even bigger impediment is that the UN HRC would supersede the US Congress: these changes to the US Constitution and laws would be imposed without a treaty or legislative input. A committee in an extra-national organization (which has a history of, at times, not working well with the United States) would be imposing regulations on the US. Imagine one of our hard-working Congressmen abrogating power in favor of declarations from a UN committee. For the UN HRC to have any impact on the United States, we'd need to amend our Constitution to grant power to an international organization, or establish a treaty to implement its recommendations. Importantly, we'd need to change the fundamental concept by which citizens have power and rights and government is restricted. (And I'm ignoring _Gibbons v. Ogden_ (1824) and the expansion of the Interstate Commerce Clause and Federal regulation throughout the 20th century.)

seorphates 8y ago

I'm disturbed how "human rights" somehow equates to mandatory acceptance of geo-political agendas. I'm even more disturbed that ""hypocritical and self-serving" and "makes a mockery of human rights"" is now a place called home.