What Is This World Coming To?

Sixteen countries — one third of the total membership of the UN Human Rights Council are members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, following elections to the UNHRC for it’s new term.

The civilized world was able to block Sri Lanka from another term, but both Pakistan and Bahrain were elected to the council. So were two African serial-rights violators, Gabon and Zambia.

All 192 U.N. member states voted by secret ballot for candidates in each of the five regional groups recognized by the world body.

The election saw no contest to fill four vacant seats in Africa and three in Latin America, and they were taken respectively by Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana and Zambia, and Argentina, Brazil and Chile.

In Eastern Europe, Serbia lost to Slovakia and Ukraine in a race for two vacant seats, and a three-way race for two seats in the Western Europe and Others group saw Spain edged out by Britain and France.

The most closely watched race was in Asia, where six countries competed for four Asian seats. Pakistan, Bahrain, Japan and South Korea were successful, while Sri Lanka and East Timor were not.

An international coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) earlier campaigned against Sri Lanka’s candidacy, citing violations including torture, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.

The new Human Rights Council members elected Wednesday will begin their terms on June 20.

Council members that also belong to the OIC are Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Senegal and Qatar.

The rest of the council comprises Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Italy, Japan, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Philippines, Russian, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay and Zambia.

U.N. Watch executive director Hillel Neuer noted that 114 out of the 192 member states voted in favor of Pakistan and 142 had supported Bahrain. In doing so, he said, they had “failed to respect human rights standards.”

“Unless the U.N. stops electing the worst violators to the Human Rights Council, we will continue to have the foxes guarding the chickens,” he said.

The United States refuses to run for a seat on the council.