GENEVA, July 5 – The U.N.’s top human rights body defied the U.S. today by adopting a Cuban-led “right to peace” resolution that endorses a draft declaration (see Art. 7) calling for resistance against “foreign occupation,” for the first time granting U.N. Human Rights Council legitimization of the terminology used by Middle East extremists to justify terrorist attacks against Americans and Israelis.
Initiated by Cuba, the resolution’s co-sponsors included Syria, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Belarus, China, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.
The Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch expressed serious concerns over the text.
“The U.N. was founded on moral clarity,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, “yet today the Syrian regime, which denies its people the right to life, was allowed to join with Iran, North Korea and other tyrannies to cynically present themselves as champions of peace.”
“It’s a sick joke that mocks the victims of these murderous regimes, and the majority should never have gone along with the farce. Today’s resolution is eerily similar to the mass slogan used in 1984, George Orwell’s totalitarian dystopia: War is Peace.”
The vote result was 34 in favour, with only the US voting no. Abstaining were Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Italy, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain and Switzerland.
The U.S. described the resolution’s call to draft a new U.N. declaration on the right to peace as “divisive” and “detrimental to efforts to achieve peace,” saying it would “sow division” and “embroil the council in contentious negotiations.” (Click here for the prepared U.S. statement.)
The new program is estimated by the U.N. to cost over $300,000 to implement.
