Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Saturday April 11 2020, @09:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the If-you-can't-beat-'em,-join-'em-and-change-'em? dept.

China Appointed to Influential UN Human Rights Council Panel

Last week, China was appointed to a seat on the Consultative Group of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Jiang Duan, an official at the Chinese Mission in Geneva, was nominated and confirmed by the Asia regional grouping and will hold the seat until March 2021. The appointment places China on an influential panel that oversees candidate recommendations for UN human rights experts and is likely to raise some concerns given China's less than perfect record on human rights issues.

As China has become more integrated in international organizations over the past 40 years or so, particularly within UN bodies and agencies, the scope of issue areas it is willing to not only engage with but also shape has expanded.

[...] The Consultative Group, the body to which China was just appointed, is charged with recommending candidates to fill positions according to the mandates of the Special Procedures, the Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Expert Mechanism on the Right of Development. The panel consists of five ambassadors, each representing the five UN regional groups, and facilitates the appointment of experts on issues of freedom of speech and religion; water and sanitation; housing; food; health; poverty; and conditions in countries such as Cambodia, Iran, Myanmar, and North Korea.

[...] In recent years, China has actively submitted proposals to the UNHRC as a member, albeit not without pushback. These resolutions have been challenged for their framing of human rights issues and the right to development within a state-centric approach, privileging the sovereignty of states over groups of people and communities. Experts have been outspoken about the implications of such proposals, raising concern that an overemphasis on dialogue and consensus might dilute the commitments to transparency and accountability. Separately, in July 2019, two coalitions of states sent competing letters to the UNHRC about China's Xinjiang policies — one criticizing China for its massive detention program and the other opposing the "politicization" of human rights issues and supporting Chinese counterterrorism and deradicalization efforts. More recently, there has been heightened international outcry about human rights in China amid the harsh measures Beijing put in place to combat the coronavirus.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 11 2020, @11:57AM (29 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday April 11 2020, @11:57AM (#981089) Homepage Journal

    And yet some retards still get all cranky when you tell them the UN are clown shoes.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Flamebait=1, Insightful=3, Overrated=1, Total=5
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by aiwarrior on Saturday April 11 2020, @12:06PM (18 children)

    by aiwarrior (1812) on Saturday April 11 2020, @12:06PM (#981092) Journal

    When the US did Guantanamo and the extraordinary renditions everybody got legitimacy to do whatever they wanted. Then add Donald Trump, as everything goes and this seems natural. What a stupid world we live in.

    • (Score: 0, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 11 2020, @01:50PM (17 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday April 11 2020, @01:50PM (#981114) Homepage Journal

      You know, it really gives me a chuckle when folks equate Gitmo with the shit that goes on as a matter of course in much of the rest of the world in order to shoot down the moral high ground of the US. Aside from being fallacious about any perceived bad acts rendering any moral statement made by the actor null, it also shows them willing to equate stubbing your toe to having said toe flayed, salted, and then cut off for the sake of their narrative.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @02:05PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @02:05PM (#981117)

        Everybody is an individual. Only the people outside care about the statistics.
        When you torture one guy, to that guy you are the worst torturer in the world. It doesn't matter that some other bastard tortured 100 people. Guantanamo might be a joke to you comparing it to other regimes, but to the people in it being abused, it is still torture and it is still wrong.

        • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:09PM (1 child)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:09PM (#981146) Journal
          And your post is the worst in the world.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2020, @06:22PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2020, @06:22PM (#983151)

            True, but it is also the best in the world.

      • (Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Saturday April 11 2020, @02:09PM (8 children)

        by gtomorrow (2230) on Saturday April 11 2020, @02:09PM (#981120)

        Buzz, whaddya say we split the difference?...

        No one is innocent. Nobody has the moral high ground. If somebody does we're talking in millimeters.

        How's that sound to you?

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @01:37PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @01:37PM (#981500)
          Most of the powerful countries don't pretend they're on the moral high ground as much as the USA though.
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 12 2020, @02:47PM (6 children)

          Fairly nonsensical. I get why you want to take that position but it's not a valid position if you're looking to have people be less shitty to each other. You absolutely can judge degrees of being shitty to your fellow human beings and there is no valid reason for allowing the worst offenders of human rights abuses to even be on a human rights committee, much less lead it.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Sunday April 12 2020, @08:53PM (5 children)

            by gtomorrow (2230) on Sunday April 12 2020, @08:53PM (#981688)

            ...it's not a valid position if you're looking to have people be less shitty to each other.

            All I'm sayin' is "He who is without sin cast the stone."

            Happy Easter, Mr Buzz.

            • (Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Sunday April 12 2020, @08:55PM

              by gtomorrow (2230) on Sunday April 12 2020, @08:55PM (#981691)

              Oops. The first stone.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 12 2020, @10:29PM (3 children)

              You're confusing commuting punishment with accepting the fox's application for a henhouse guarding job. One is mercy and compassion, the other is being a bloody fool.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Monday April 13 2020, @07:38AM (1 child)

                by gtomorrow (2230) on Monday April 13 2020, @07:38AM (#981872)

                And you're compartmentalizing.

                To be perfectly honest, I can see your point (fox guarding the henhouse). That was also my initial reaction. I even agree with you!

                Then I thought about how this present situation arose some decades ago and instead of refusing to have dealings with governments which have such a miserable record regarding human rights, America's/Western Europe's love of cheap plastic toys has turned a blind eye. Then I thought about just the last two decades regarding American human rights affairs (Guantanamo, Assange, Patriot Act, FISA, Snowden, airport security theatre, cellular triangulation...oh, the list goes on and on). And this is just an extemporaneous short list of publicly known subjects. Any argument is cognitive dissonance. They're all "oranges in a tube sock" but you just wanna see blood.

                "We" put China, Saudi Arabia, [name your "enemy" here] in the place of power they occupy today, knowing full well how these governments operate in terms of human rights, in exchange for cheap plastic toys and the prime materials to make cheap plastic toys. And now we're crying "fox guarding the henhouse"?

                Pick your manual: 1984 or Brave New World...or make a Venn diagram.

                • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 13 2020, @02:30PM

                  No, I'm really not. I'm just calling bullshit on the whole "you did something bad, though not remotely as bad, so you can never speak out about atrocities" argument. You do not have to be perfect to say something is wrong. But if you're one of the most wrong nations in the world, you do not belong in charge of whatever it is you're wrong on.

                  --
                  My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Monday April 13 2020, @07:49AM

                by gtomorrow (2230) on Monday April 13 2020, @07:49AM (#981873)

                OFFTOPIC: and now I get the "boss in your underwear" joke! 🤣🤣🤣

                Hey...it was new to me!

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday April 11 2020, @02:37PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 11 2020, @02:37PM (#981135) Journal

        Gotta disagree with you here. GP mentioned renditions. That mostly meant kidnapping "suspects", taking them to some third country's territory, and "interrogating" them, outside of the jurisdiction of any US court. There have been a large number of incredible reports about the torture, which I can shrug off easily enough. But, there have also been credible reports of torture.

        The Shrub's administration admitted to waterboarding, readily enough. And Dickless Cheny spent an extraordinary amount of effort justifying torture. Those two facts lend even more credibility to those credible reports about renditions. Those two fuckwads did more to damage the US' reputation around the world than any five president's administrations before them.

        The Guardian has a reasonable enough article on the matter, from the British perspective - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/11/7-things-diego-garcia-rendition-flights-documentaton-water-damage [theguardian.com]

        Diego Garcia isn't unique, either. There are other out-of-the-way places where flights could stop for fuel, transfer prisoners, or whatever, entirely out of sight of the media. I flew into and out of one of those places, and it made a helluva impression on me, and all the other passengers.

        Funny, how Bush and Blair were so ready to "welcoming him back to "civilised" society,". For extremely warped definitions of "civilised", I suppose their welcome might be appropriate.

        For unexplainable reasons, I took all of that shit a little personally.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Saturday April 11 2020, @04:48PM (3 children)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday April 11 2020, @04:48PM (#981183) Journal
        Torture only works on TV shows. All water boarding did was make it easier for extremists to recruit followers.
        --
        SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
  • (Score: 2) by quietus on Saturday April 11 2020, @01:37PM (9 children)

    by quietus (6328) on Saturday April 11 2020, @01:37PM (#981109) Journal

    Any grouping of people, hence any organisation, will have a number of clown shoes in them; that's just statistics. That doesn't mean that organisation itself is useless.

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 11 2020, @01:51PM (6 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday April 11 2020, @01:51PM (#981115) Homepage Journal

      If the clown shoes are allowed to run things, it absolutely does, yes.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:39PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:39PM (#981158)

        Remind me who are the clowns?

        "The CIA, with significant support from Britain and other allies, would kidnap people and fly them to countries where they could be tortured. Detainees spent months or years in secret prisons beyond the rule of law. In the dungeons of Gaddafi, Mubarak or Assad they were beaten and hung from the walls, and in some cases had their genitals cut with a scalpel."

        "Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States, and also let me say, we believe that Secretary Rice is lying, there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop."

        "First the ... government denied renditions ever took place... [t]hen in 2008 it finally admitted the truth. Now, years later, documents relating to a key period have reportedly been accidentally destroyed when they were soaked in water."

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday April 12 2020, @06:10PM (3 children)

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 12 2020, @06:10PM (#981624) Journal

        If the clown shoes are allowed to run things, it absolutely does, yes.

        Ironic given who the US president is.

        Shirley the Republican party could have done better.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 12 2020, @06:33PM (2 children)

          Did you see the 2016 primaries? They couldn't. And don't call me Shirley.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday April 12 2020, @07:34PM (1 child)

            by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 12 2020, @07:34PM (#981668) Journal

            I don't vote in their primary. But I thought any one of those clowns would be a better choice than Trump.

            I didn't like GW Bush. But I would gladly have him back in a heartbeat over Trump. At least he had some sense of honor, decency and a partly working moral compass. Not that I'm trying to praise the guy as a great man.

            --
            People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 12 2020, @10:34PM

              But I thought any one of those clowns would be a better choice than Trump.

              I watched the first few debates. You're incorrect. Every one of them would have been worse from a generic Democrat's perspective, a generic Republican's perspective, and from my perspective off where all three of us sane folks live.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @03:18PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @03:18PM (#981523)
      Meanwhile I've been wondering whether the CIA done significantly more good than harm for the US people. Would the US people really be worse off if the CIA did not exist?

      Note: I'm not going to count their support of "Modern Art" as a "good".
      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday April 12 2020, @06:12PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 12 2020, @06:12PM (#981625) Journal

        Would the US people really be worse off if the CIA did not exist?

        They could tell you, but then they'd have to subject you to AT&T service.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.