Amazingly enough, Libya remains a member of the UN Human Rights Council. But tomorrow, the council will hold a special session to consider the situation in Libya. On its website, it notes that this is the first time that the UN has decided to investigate a sitting member. There is no acknowledgement that is a disgrace that Libya is a member of the council in the first place. However, this is not some weird accident. It is the settled will of the international community. The Libyans were voted onto the council in May – getting 155 votes of the 192 UN members. Gaddafi is obviously a popular chap.
The NGOs that are meant to campaign for human rights have been incredibly limp about the continuing embarrassment that is the UN Human Rights Council. I see that a spokesman for Amnesty International is quoted as welcoming the special session on Libya tomorrow – and also says that this raises the question – “should Libya continue to have membership rights?”. Well, quite.
The trouble is that Libya is only the most egregious example of a major violator of human-rights on the council. Other members include China, Cuba, Bahrain, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
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