NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE

A
t the turn of this century, a number of United Nations officials lined up to criticize the organization’s Commission on Human Rights.

Even the strongest advocates of the international human-rights project were forced to admit the body’s abject failure: The world’s worst dictatorships and human-rights abusers routinely manipulated its proceedings to deflect from their own depravities. It became a tool with which to attack Western governments and human-rights defenders.

Sergio Vieira de Mello, the legendary U.N. diplomat who inspired an eponymous Netflix biopic, warned of its “use for political ends.” Former secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali raised the alarm about its manifest failings.

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