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Article: Chickens and foxes; Human rights; Inside the Human-Rights Commission.(International)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- April 21, 2001
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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LOOKING at this year's membership of the UN 's Human-Rights Commission, Reed Brody, who works for Human Rights Watch, a lobby group, concluded that the foxes were guarding the chicken coop. The commission, whose members are drawn from 53 governments, is holding its six-week annual session in Geneva, ending on April 27th. It is a huge assembly, with 3,000 delegates. Each country serves a three-year term until it is replaced by another elected by states in its region. Of this year's new intake of 14, Human Rights Watch singles out Algeria, Congo, Kenya, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Vietnam as "abusive governments".
The commission's job is to establish standards ...