Did you know that the United Nations has a Human Rights Council made up of forty-seven nations who each sit on the Council for three years, elected on a rotational basis from the 193 UN members. On 1 January 2021 they elected the following countries for a three year term, to oversee human rights on behalf of all nations.
Bolivia, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, France, Gabon, Malawi, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan,
Russian Federation, Senegal, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan.
These 15 members will serve three-year terms beginning on 1 January 2021. Do you notice anything odd about these nominees ?
Yes, you spotted it. Both Russia and Ukraine were sitting side by side on the human rights council : today the UN has suspended the Russian Federation from the council, I wonder why.
Then you have the UN Security Council which has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. It has 15 Members, and each Member has one vote. There are five permanent members (USA, UK, France, China and Russia). The UN Security Council gives veto powers to its five permanent members, which means essentially that any resolution put to the security council can die instantly if one permanent member of the council says ‘nyet’. So, if there was a vote to remove, for instance, the Russian Federation from the security council it would have to have Russia’s approval to go ahead.
It seems that the only thing the security council can regularly achieve unanimous agreement on is a resolution to break for lunch !
From time to time the UN is characterised as a nut house and it does seem that Alice in Wonderland was adopted as a template – you be the judge :
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
― Alice in Wonderland
You may well think that the United Nations no longer has a place in the modern world but, like coal mining its supporters say, it provides employment : what more could you ask ?
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