U.N. creates new rights council; isolates U.S.

Even Cuba, which had prepared several amendments, was among the 170 countries that voted in favor, including U.S. allies in Europe, Canada and elsewhere. Of the four opposing the resolution, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau joined the United States. Belarus, Iran and Venezuela abstained.

As the preeminent international rights watchdog, the new U.N. Human Rights Council is to expose human rights abusers and help nations draw up rights legislation. It would replace the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission, which has included some notorious rights violators.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told the assembly that despite a list of objections, the Bush administration would cooperate with the new rights body. But he later told reporters it was undecided whether Washington would seek a seat on the council when elections are held on May 9.

The Republican-led House International Relations Committee has threatened to withhold part of U.S. payments to the United Nations if the human rights commission was not reformed.

Asked if he would tell the committee that reforms had taken place, Bolton said, "No, that's why we voted against it."

However, he said the Bush administration was against withholding funds. "But we have a system of separated powers and Congress will do what it wants to do."

'AS STRONG AND EFFECTIVE AS CAN BE'

Still, Bolton told a packed General Assembly, "We did not have sufficient confidence in this text to be able to say that the Human Rights Council will be better than its predecessor.

"That said, the United States will work cooperatively with other member states to make the council as strong and effective as it can be."

But the United States, which says the rules of the new council are not tough enough to prevent rights abusing nations from getting a seat, was not the only one with criticisms.

Many developing nations said the West only wanted to target poor countries and its friends and made short shift of economic equality.

The resolution, said Pakistan's ambassador, Munir Akram, did not have enough safeguards "against the arbitrary and discriminatory targeting against developing countries, especially Islamic countries."

Until the night before the vote, no one was sure whether Cuba would submit amendments from the floor, which would have doomed the council.

General Assembly President Jan Eliasson, a Swede, said he would have suspended the meeting. Diplomats said he and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, now touring Africa, telephoned Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque to persuade him to drop the changes.

Cuba's U.N. ambassador, Rodrigo Malierca, said the text was concocted "behind the scenes to accommodate (Washington's) demands, sacrificing vital interests of the countries of the South."

Many nations, including Canada, New Zealand and European Union members, as well as major rights groups, shared U.S. misgivings. But they voted in favor, fearing that new negotiations would result in a weaker resolution.

Eliasson, who negotiated the text over many months, acknowledged that it was a compromise. But he called the council "a body that would advance the founding principles that were initiated by the General Assembly with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights" of 1948.

Typical of major human rights groups was Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, who said, "We can celebrate the birth of the council, but whether it walks or crawls will depend on the commitment of governments."

He told Reuters, "It would be utterly childish if the Congress were to mobilize against the council when it is vastly better than the commission the United States has worked with for years."

Nile Gardner of the conservative Heritage Foundation said he thought there would be movement in the Senate to withhold U.N. funds but that the administrative's stand was confusing.

"It makes no sense for the United States to fund a council that is in no way better than the original commission," he told Reuters.

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