What’s Australia going to do? How can they live up to their predecessors? Maybe they could introduce a dictatorship and secret police. How about a human shredder for speedsters on the roads, instead of fines? We have got at least be able to match our predecessors, in breeches of human rights, or the UN won’t show us any respect.
AUSTRALIA today was chosen to chair the UN’s top human rights body, replacing Libya, which took the rotating post last year despite fierce opposition from the United States. The 53-member UN Human Rights Commission agreed by consensus to make Australian Ambassador Mike Smith chairman on behalf of Western nations, whose turn it was to take the seat. "I feel enormously privileged to have been elected as chair of the commission on human rights," Smith told a news conference at the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva.
| It's mighty... ummm... unusual having you there, Mike. |
His selection passed relatively smoothly compared with last year, when the United States called a precedent-setting vote to elect the new chair due to its opposition to Africa’s nomination of Libyan ambassador Najat Al-Hajjaji. The vote marked a break from the practice of agreeing to appointments by consensus, and underscored US opposition to Tripoli’s candidacy, mostly over the 1988 bombing of a PanAm jetliner over Lockerbie in Scotland. |