[Opinion] Can Canada Help Fix the UN's Human Rights Disaster?
[Excerpts]
The violence and atrocities in Venezuela are further examples of how the world’s human rights frameworks have gone terribly wrong. Yes, many governments that claim to promote these universal values have condemned the actions of the Nicolas Maduro regime and given verbal support to his challenger, Juan Guaidó.
In Canada, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland as well as Liberal and Conservative MPs have spoken clearly. But on the ground, Maduro’s thugs have grown more violent, withholding food, and beating up journalists.
In many ways, the international organizations that are, in theory, pledged to uphold the principles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights are among the main reasons for this failure. In March, the 47 member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), are scheduled to issue a series of reports, hold meetings, and vote on many resolutions. According to Geneva-based UN Watch, no reports will be published on Venezuela, in large part because the Council with its large staff and special rapporteurs, will be busy, as always, bashing Israel. No less than seven full-scale denunciations have been prepared by the anti-Israel council staff, using the language of international law and human rights without the substance.
In these meetings, what the UN calls a Commission of Inquiry is expected to condemn Israel for the violence that took place for the past year along the Gaza fence. By artificially and absurdly defining attacks staged by Hamas as civil unrest, rather than armed attacks protected by human shields, the UN and its NGO mouthpieces are again pressing the International Criminal Court to open cases against Israelis.