It features the sordid ritual of the world's despots and tyrants scrambling to join a commission that is tasked with investigating and condemning the world's despots and tyrants. Although not a judicial body, the commission is the UN membership's chief human rights organ. It is composed of 53 governments, chosen for three-year terms. According to the usual UN procedure, each regional bloc of governments selects an assigned number of commission members. There are no minimum criteria for membership.
Dictatorships are as free as democracies to serve.
The latest batch of new members illustrates how poorly this system works. They include such dubious paragons of human rights virtue as Algeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Vietnam. Needless to say, such governments do not seek membership out of a commitment to promote human rights abroad or to improve their own abysmal human rights records. Rather they join the commission to protect themselves from criticism and to undermine its work. This sabotage takes two forms.