Quick takes // by Ben FrankelEnough already: UNHRC leader questions killing of OBL

Published 5 May 2011

The ultimate oxymoron of our time? Easy: “UN High Commissioner for Human Rights”; the UN does not promote human rights or advance human rights because it cannot do so; it cannot do so because the human rights record of most of its members is nothing short of appalling; what do we want these UN members to do: volunteer to vote for and promote the very values they reject and suppress at home? Now the leader of the UN human rights body raises questions about the U.S. killing of OBL; the George W. Bush administration withdrew the United States from the UNHRC; two years ago the Obama administration re-joined that body in the hope of reforming it; it is time — high time — for the administration to admit it made a mistake and withdraw U.S. membership

The ultimate oxymoron of our time? Easy: “UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.” The UN does not promote human rights or advance human rights because it cannot do so. It cannot do so because the human rights record of most of its members is nothing short of appalling. What do we want these UN members to do: volunteer to vote for and promote the very values they reject and suppress at home?

The body the UN has entrusted with promoting human rights is the Human Rights Commission (UNHRC). Here are some of the members of this body: Angola, Burkina Faso, Libya, Mauritania, Nigeria, China, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Cuba. These are not countries famous for their adherence to Jeffersonian values or for their insistence on observing and protecting the rights of their citizens.

All we need to know about the UNHRC (and, for that matter, about the UN) is this: In May 2010, 155 out of the 192 members of the UN voted for accepting Libya as a member of the UNHRC, and on 20 May the UN will vote with a similar majority to accept Syria as a member.

You may want to know what the UNHRC actually does. It does two things:

  • It issues studies praising the human rights records of UNHRC members. One of the recent recipients of the UNHRC whole-hearted commendation was Libya. In a 40-page pean to Libya’s human rights achievements, representatives of countries such as Saudi Arabia and North Korea heaped praise on the advances in human rights which Col. Gaddafi has introduced.
  • It harshly criticizes Israel.

This is more or less it. We say “more or less” because if there is a little time left after praising its members and criticizing Israel, the UNHRC also criticizes the United States and other Western liberal democracies.

 

Why mention this sorry body in these pages? Because the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, did not wait more than a few hours after President Obama’s announcement about the killing of OBL to raise questions about the manner in which OBL was dispatched to a better world. Pillay issues a statement saying, “This was a complex operation, and it would be helpful if we knew the precise facts surrounding his killing. The United Nations has consistently emphasized that all counterterrorism acts must respect international law.”

Here are two quick things we want to say:

1. Eric Holder, the U.S. attorney general, said yesterday that the killing of OBL “was justified as an act of national self defense.”

Fox News reports that Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee: “Let me make something very clear: The operation in which Osama bin Laden was killed was lawful. He was the head of al Qaeda, the organization that had conducted the attacks of September 11th. He admitted his involvement … [and] he said he would not be taken alive.”

Holder said it is lawful to “target an enemy commander in the field,” just as U.S. forces did during the Second World War when it shot down a plane carrying Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto. Bin Laden was “by my estimation, and the estimation of the Justice Department, a lawful military target, and the operation was conducted consistent with our law [and] with our values.”

So this is what we want to tell Ms. Pillay: We will take the U.S. Justice Department’s interpretation of the Abbottabad operation over your interpretation — and over the interpretation of the UNHRC — any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

2. The George W. Bush administration withdrew the United States from the UNHRC because of that body’s relentless anti-West and anti-Israel bias. Two years ago the Obama administration re-joined that body in the hope of reforming it. That the leader of the UNHRC would raise questions about an indisputably clear case of justified self defense by the United States should be reason enough for the administration to reconsider its decision from two years ago. The administration should tell the UNHRC: “Enough, already!” and leave.

Ben Frankel is editor of the Homelland Security NewsWire