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Amnesty International: 61st session of the UN Commission on Human Rights – Amnesty International calls on Members to demonstrate unequivocal commitment to human rights

“Amnesty International takes the opportunity of today’s election of the officers of the Bureau of the 61st session of the Commission on Human Rights (the Commission) to urge governments to take careful account of the findings of the High Level Panel on Threats and Challenges about the Commission as they prepare for the upcoming session. Members of the Commission must act now to re-establish the credibility and professionalism of the Commission. Amnesty International calls upon Members of the Commission to end their use of double standards in dealing with human rights violations, to demonstrate a real commitment to human rights, and to enhance the human rights expertise of their delegations to the Commission.”

The cheek of these people. What next? Firefighters to be expected to extinguish fires? Yeah, right.

So, how depressing is this? The UN Commission on Human Rights is so mired is deal-making, back-scratching and bigotry that it has to be exhorted “to demonstrate unequivocal commitment to human rights”.

The writing was on the wall when Libya was elected the committee’s chairman.