UN Human Rights Commission

Was slightly worried at the UN's plans to change the Human Rights Commission.

"Reform" can often mean change for the worse - eg Bush's Social Security "reform", which will rip the heart out of one of the most effective anti poverty campaigns in US history. (there's a great flash animation about Social Securityhere, done by Free Range Media)

But getting back to the UN's reforms, I think they may well be for the better. Amnesty has been heavily critical of the UNHRC in the past:

At a time when human rights are under attack like never before, the Commission needs to be an effective, fair and principled guardian of human rights. It must be willing and able to speak up wherever violations of human rights occur and whoever the perpetrator. Each time it does not perform this role its credibility is further eroded.

But Human Rights Watch's Director Ken Roth has said:

“The Secretary-General is proposing a structure that could do much more to protect human rights than what the U.N.’s been doing for the last fifty years. This is a courageous proposal and we support it.”

So hopefully this is a change for the better. I was heartened by a BBC poll which suggested that the majority of the world's population wanted a stronger not weaker UN. The US seems to be mildly supportive of a larger security council, which Chomsky discusses in detail here. The BBC has an interesting debate on the subject of the UN more generally here, although I have to say I found in unsettling ho many people were opposed to it.