NEWS

House Foreign Affairs Committee

U.S. House of Representatives

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Republican

CONTACT: Sam Stratman, (202) 226-7875

Lee Cohen, (202) 226-1139

January 11, 2007

For IMMEDIATE Release

Ros-Lehtinen Comments on Human Rights Watch Report

on Problematic UN Human Rights Council

(WASHINGTON) – U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, commented today on the release of the Human Rights Watch World Report, which notes that the new UN Human Rights Council “has quickly fallen prey to some of the same problems that doomed its predecessor,” the UN Commission on Human Rights:

According to its supporters, the UN Human Rights Council was meant to improve on the discredited UN Human Rights Commission. But instead of reform, it has brought regression.

The Council’s embarrassing performance should come as no surprise, as some of the world’s most notorious human rights abusers are members. In fact, by pulling its membership from the broader UN General Assembly, the Council has gone further than its predecessor to augment the influence of gross violators over the human rights agenda.

The past ten months have not given the United States any reason to regret its vote against the creation of the Council in its present form.

Rather than standing as a strong defender of fundamental human rights, the Human Rights Council has faltered as a weak voice subject to gross political manipulation.

The only country it has condemned is the democratic State of Israel, devoting three special sessions to that purpose in its first six months.

In contrast, the Council has not had the basic courage to condemn genocide in Darfur, the sprawling gulag of North Korea, or bloody military repression in Burma.

Unless it dramatically changes course and begins to credibly address the gravest violations of fundamental human rights, the UN Human Rights Council will quickly consign itself to irrelevance and scorn among the freedom loving peoples of the world.

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