hiredgun

Shades, your sarcasm is unnecessary and doesn't really address the issue.

Meridae'n, I am also concerned about the selection of Sudan as head of UNHRC, but two things:

First, though it is symbolically repugnant, this decision will have little effect on the state of human rights internationally. Myriad countries, including the Sudan and some others that you mentioned, are already getting away with human rights abuses, and this is unlikely to change that or even worsen it. Additionally, the installment of some other country is hardly likely to yield great changes and strides in human rights in our current atmosphere.

Which brings me to my second point; in a unipolar world, US involvement is absolutely crucial for the UN to function in an enforcement role. Currently, human rights abuses are not among the US's top priorities in the UN, as evidenced by our disregard for conditions in both some of our friends (Saudi Arabia, Israel) and some of our would-be rivals (China). Thus we are faced with a serious lack of policy commitment on the part of member nations to keep one another in line.

Here is where isolationists might claim that we should shed the UN entirely, but although cooperation with the UN involves some measure of compromise, we make up for it tenfold in terms of legitimacy. The unpopularity of this current Iraq war is due in large part to the perception that this is a unilateral, imperialistic action by the United States.

Remember that a huge factor in the failure of the League of Nations was the US's utter non-participation. America has more relative power in today's world than it did between the two World Wars, and it has the ability to effect great positive change in the world by working with international institutions rather than dismissing them. Cooperation yields not only the benefit of some differing perspectives from our own, but the blessing of our actions with some international legitimacy.