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A bi-weekly audio series and podcast service, hosted by Committee on Conscience Project Director Bridget Conley-Zilkic, that brings you the voices of human rights defenders, experts, advocates, and government officials. Vital voices addressing one of humanity's most vital issues. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not necessarily represent those of the Museum.
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11/28/06
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 Earlier this year, the United Nations established a new Human Rights Council to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission. Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed the Council's creation by proclaiming "a new era in the human rights work of the United Nations." He talked about "outstanding leadership" and "transformation" and "a historic achievement." He even "venture[d] to hope" that within five years the Council would be so respected for its work protecting human rights that there would be a general will to amend the UN Charter to make the Council a principal organ of the UN -- on a par with the General Assembly and the Security Council. Unfortunately, it hasn't taken the new Council long to disgrace itself, and today the new era effectively died aborning when the Council rejected an attempt to hold the Sudanese government responsible for halting atrocities in Darfur. Instead, it adopted a resolution that tepidly called on all parties to stop abuses. It even praised Khartoum and urged the government "to continue and intensify its cooperation with the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms." Even before today's burlesque, Human Rights Watch's Peggy Hicks marveled that the Council "already has garnered a level of condemnation that its predecessor took decades to achieve." The Council meets in Geneva, but it might as well be in cloud cuckoo land for all the good it's doing to protect the human rights of civilians in Darfur. (Photo © The Urban Spaceman.)
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