China foils UN watchdog talks

A last-minute attempt by China to raise the threshold for resolutions against human rights violators yesterday effectively blocked year-long efforts to establish new rules for the UN Human Rights Council, Reuters reported. The council, the successor to the often criticized Human Rights Commission, had until yesterday to agree on the rules it would follow. China's late demand that two-thirds of the council's 47 members must approve investigations into alleged rights violations came "as a shock," said Swiss Ambassador Blaise Godet, as a compromise package had looked set to pass. Currently, the requirement for an expert to investigate alleged rights
violations is by simple majority, but the country says two-thirds of
the council's 47 members should be required to approve. The council was set up a year ago, but received criticism from Western
countries and rights campaigners of shortcomings in political skewing
and that too many members were countries with poor records on human
rights.