Erik Flesch

The United Nations revealed the extent of its moral bankruptcy Monday when all but three member nations voted Libya ÷ a repressive regime still under U.N. sanctions for financing the 1988 Lockerbie bombing ÷ to chair its top council on human rights.

The United States demanded the vote after African countries, granted their turn by a half-century of U.N. tradition, nominated the North African country to chair the 53-member U.N. Commission on Human Rights. But along with the United States, only Canada and Guatemala voted no, despite the fact that human rights groups consider Libya one of the world's worst abusers ÷ one that has not had a free election since Colonel Moammar Gadhafi seized power in 1969.

European Union diplomats claimed to be dismayed at the nomination, yet seven abstained from voting ÷ saying Europe didn't want to alienate Africa and other developing countries. Ten other countries also abstained. In other words, 50 member countries decided it is more important to uphold tradition ÷ not rock the boat, protect people's feelings, take the middle path, live and let live, celebrate diversity, exalt consensus, respect the sovereignty of each and every regime blindly ÷ than to defend the integrity of the international watchdog group's mission.

What is the mission of the Human Rights Commission? To promote and protect human rights. Rights define freedoms of action that may never be morally compromised by any person or group ÷ not even a government. States that exalt rights are "good guys," and those that treat the lives, property and happiness of its citizens as sacrificial fodder are "bad guys."

Peer pressure is denounced as a negative standard of value for preteens in America, yet the United Nations holds it sacred.

And yet, Najat al-Hajjaji, the Libyan representative to the United Nations, said the U.S. denouncement of Libya's nomination set "a bad precedent" because it worsens divisions in the world by labeling countries as "bad guys or good guys," The Associated Press reported. "I don't think there is any country free of human rights violations," she added.

What kind of country is so quick to defend the honor of human rights abusers? One that conducts arbitrary arrests to suppress domestic opposition, tortures and detains prisoners for years without trial and orders extrajudicial killings. One that openly supports violent organizations like the Irish Republican Army and is held responsible for the 1988 bombing of a Pan-Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people. Joanna Weschler of Human Rights Watch said simply, "Over the past three decades, Libya's human rights record has been appalling."

Why should the United Nations vote so overwhelmingly to make Libya its poster child for human rights? For the same reason it voted in 2001 not to reappoint the United States to its seat on the commission ÷ giving a seat instead to Sudan, a country that tolerates the practice of slavery. Member nations abhor the principle that just laws are objective and absolute. They believe morality is subjective and a matter of nationality or race. How should the United Nations judge what kind of behavior is appropriate? Majority vote, they say.

Peer pressure is denounced as a negative standard of value for preteens in America, yet the United Nations holds it sacred. Al-Hajjaji said in a speech after her election that she would rely on the body's collective wisdom and that she would avoid "as far as possible" making decisions on a personal basis. What about making decisions according to the principle of championing human rights?

Abandoning principles for consensus, the United Nations has lost sight of any possible value it may have offered to world security, and the United States must recognize it for what it is. As Reuters reported back in 1991, "the 53-member commission (is) turning into an Îabuser solidarity' group with more and more countries with questionable human rights records gaining election and then voting as a bloc against singling out individual nations for human rights abuses." Writer-philospher Ayn Rand put it another way: The United Nations is like "a crime-fighting committee whose board of directors includes the leading gangsters of the community."

While cooperating with other countries is an appropriate way for the United States to promote international peace and create wealth, supporting an organization that serves the interests of human rights abusers is outrageous ÷ especially at a time when the world is looking to the United Nations as the final arbiter on any possible war against dictator Saddam Hussein.