U.N. Rights Body Defies U.S. with "Right to Peace"

Press Release
First Time: U.N. Rights Body Defies U.S. with "Right to Peace" Resolution Giving Legitimacy to Terror

Sponsors include Syria, Iran, North Korea, Cuba

Contact UN Watch in Geneva: media1@unwatch.org

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 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.

The draft declaration referenced by today's resolution was prepared by the council’s 18-member Advisory Committee, a controversial group that includes the pro-Ahmadinejad Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann; Jean Ziegler, co-founder of the Moammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize; and Halima Warzazi, a former defender of Saddam Hussein. All three are on a pending U.S. congressional watchlist.

www.unwatch.org

UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information (DPI).

ENDS

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