At least Pakistan was not elected to the UNHRC

On the other hand, "Venezuela, UAE, Burundi, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, and Togo easily won election at the UN yesterday to 3-year terms on the 47-nation Human Rights Council". According to this report, in 2016 the Council will have its smallest proportion of free members ever.

The U.N. Human Rights Council in 2016 will have just 18 countries rated as “free” out of a total of 47 – the lowest number in the body’s decade-old history.

For the first time since the HRC was created in 2006, the proportion of members designated “free” by the Washington-based democracy watchdog, Freedom House, will drop next year to below 40 percent.

It's not as if we do not know the truth about these countries:

Earlier, a report by three human rights groups – U.N. Watch, Human Rights Foundation and the Lantos Foundation – evaluated all 21 candidates in the election, and concluded that nine were unsuitable.

Of those nine, seven were elected on Wednesday: Ethiopia, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Ecuador, Burundi, Togo and Kyrgyzstan.

The remaining two, Pakistan and Laos, were unsuccessful. In part, that was because their regional group, Asia, presented a competitive slate – seven candidates for five vacancies.

The African group, by contrast, put up a closed slate – five candidates for five vacancies – thus all but assuring success for Ethiopia and Burundi (both “not free”), and Togo (“partly free”).

To a great extent the organization is funded by Western countries who have a considerably better record in freedom and human rights (the USA puts up a hefty 22% of the money) but the purpose of the organization is lost in the necessity to represent every region. The fact is that freedom is not a concept that is valued at all highly in various regions.

UNWatch gives the results of the votes if you scroll down the story, adding in particular this:

Togo won more seats that any other candidate, 189 out of 193.

Human rights abuses in Togo include:

Executive influence over the judiciary

Restrictions on freedom of press and assembly

Rape, violence, and discrimination against women

Child abuse, including female genital mutilation and sexual exploitation

Trafficking in persons.

Discrimination persisted against persons with disabilities, regional and ethnic groups, and LGBT

Child labor, including forced child labor

Togo takes limited steps to prosecute or punish officials who commit abuses. Impunity, including in the security services, is widespread.

So, what are we to expect from this wonderful institution in the future? This is Hillel Neuer's prediction:

The Council will continue to turn a blind eye to egregious abuses by violators like China, Cuba, Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe, which have never been addressed in any UN resolution.

Mechanisms meant to help victims will be hijacked by politicization and selectivity.

The core principles of individual human rights will be subverted by concepts that increase power for governments.

I bet there will be lots of resolutions about Israel, though.

Back to the Human Rights Council

Claudia Rosen has an excellent article about the egregious UN Human Rights Council on National Review Online. After a vigorous campaign led by UN Watch Western officials finally got away from whatever bars they were drinking in and put some pressure on Sudan to drop its candidacy for that body. That, says Ms Rosen is a victory of a kind.

She then goes through all the other countries that would not recognize human rights if they met them on the street that sit on that body or about to be elected to it.

All of which brings us to the question: What, exactly, are the real qualifications for membership on the U.N. Human Rights Council? 

On paper, the terms are neatly spelled out. In a resolution dated April 3, 2006, the General Assembly stipulated that even though seats on the Human Rights Council are open to all U.N. member states, the countries electing representatives should take into account, along with countries’ pledges of good behavior, “the contribution of the candidates to the promotion and protection of human rights.” Further, the General Assembly may, by a two-thirds majority of those present and voting, suspend any member of the council “that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights.” 

That’s great, but it translates into almost nothing in practice. Cuba, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Mauritania have all sat comfortably and entirely unsuspended on the council for years. Venezuela and Pakistan look like shoo-ins in the upcoming election. Evidently, there is no particular bar at the Human Rights Council to such repressive policies, in various combinations, as authoritarian or downright despotic rule, gags on free speech, religious intolerance, torture, jailing of democratic dissidents, or de facto tolerance of slavery.

There actually is no solution to the conundrum for two reasons: the countries are chosen by geographic blocs and when you get to those parts of the world where there are no free countries that respect human rights, you will not be able to find such countries for the Human Rights Council; but an even bigger problem is that among the members of the UN the majority are oppressive, illiberal and have only a nodding acquaintance with the concept of human rights. How can anyone believe that any of its organizations would be capable of promoting that concept?

Meanwhile, UN Watch once again confronts the UN Human Rights Council, this time over one of its new officials, voted in unanimously by the 47 member states, Alfred de Zayas, a man who is much loved by Holocaust deniers for his somewhat controversial opinions.