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US OUSTED FROM HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

In what amounts to a stinging rebuke, the United States has been voted off the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. This marks the first time the US will not be represented on the Commission since its inception in 1947.

France, Austria and Sweden were chosen for the three seats allocated to western countries that were up for election, Reuters reported. The vote was conducted among 53 nations in the Economic and Social Council, the umbrella group for the Commission.

According to Reuters, some diplomats said they believed the Bush administration's opposition to the Kyoto climate change treaty as well as its insistence on a missile defense contributed to the loss.

Joanna Weschler, the UN representative of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said both western and developing countries bore grudges against the US. "Washington should have seen it coming because there has been a growing resentment towards the United States and ... votes on key human-rights standards, including opposition to a treaty to abolish land mines and to the International Criminal Court and making AIDS drugs available to everyone," she said in a Reuters report.

James Cunningham, the acting US ambassador to the United Nations, called the move "very disappointing," but said the decision "won't affect our commitment to human rights".

Information from a United Nations press release, 3 May 2001.