Americans are growing increasingly skeptical of the United
Nations. A recent Rasmussen poll found that a mere 27 percent of
American voters regard the U.N. as an ally of the United States. If
you wonder why that is, or whether it is deserved, take a look at
the U.N. Human Rights Council. It does a wonderful job of serving
as a platform for notorious regimes like China's or Iran's to
criticize Israel and the U.S., but a terrible job of actually
promoting human rights.
A prime example of this is about to play itself out in Geneva,
where a global human-rights meeting called the Durban Review
Conference ("Durban II," for short) is being held this week,
ostensibly to work towards combating racism. Durban II is the
follow-up to the World Conference against Racism, Racial
Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance held in 2001 in
Durban, South Africa. That conference was intended to be "a
landmark in the struggle to eradicate all forms of racism . . .
[and] a unique opportunity to create a new world vision for the
fight against racism in the twenty-first century."
But what started as a seemingly well-intentioned effort to focus
the international community on fighting racism quickly ran off the
rails, as those bent on condemning Israel and America dominated the
drafting of the Durban conference's official "outcome document."
Pre-conference drafts condemned Israel for allegedly pursuing a
racist Zionist agenda and committing crimes against humanity, in
the form of the Palestinian people. A group of African nations
sought reparations from the West for slavery (with no mention
whatsoever of the role played by Arab and African nations in the
slave trade).
The events of the 2001 Durban conference itself were tame
compared to the forum held beforehand by international
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), where vilification of Israel
and the U.S. dominated the agenda. The NGOs exerted enormous
pressure on governments to criticize the U.S. for a litany of
perceived crimes, including widespread racism, and for having a
foreign policy that was "responsible for racial oppression around
the world."
In the light of the 2001 experience, there has been a
long-running debate in the U.S. government and the human-rights
community as to whether the U.S. should attend Durban II. As the
Durban II preparatory meetings unfolded, beginning in 2007, it
became clear that the conference would do very little to combat
racism. The most obvious clue came when the human-rights paragons
at the U.N. elected a representative of Libya to serve as chairman
of the preparatory meetings, and representatives of human-rights
abusers such as Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia to serve as vice
chairmen. President Bush saw the writing on the wall. He kept the
U.S. away from preparatory meetings, and withheld funding as
well.
Would the incoming Obama administration -- committed to
multilateral engagement and led by the first African-American
president in history -- reverse Bush's "cowboy unilateralism" and
attend the global conference on racism? Many believed that a
dramatic shift in the U.S. position could cure all that ailed the
preparatory meetings.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Durban II. Since the
Bush administration had not attended the preparatory meetings,
other Western nations had to pursue the fight to delete the worst
elements of the draft "outcome document," which will become the
official statement of the conference. These nations were uniformly
unsuccessful; statements highly critical of one nation -- Israel --
remained in the draft document, along with attacks on free speech
in the guise of opposing "defamation of religion" (i.e., saying
anything critical of Islamic extremism).
Despite months of effort, European representatives and
human-rights groups failed to change the draft in any substantive
way. Then in March a new, updated version of the draft outcome
document appeared. It no longer contained overt condemnation of
Israel or endorsement of constraints on free speech.
What caused the dramatic turnaround? A press release from the
U.S. State Department on February 27, stating that it would not
send a delegation to Durban II since "the current text of the draft
outcome document is not salvageable." After months and months of
discussion and debate, the most controversial and polarizing parts
of the draft statement disappeared -- but only after the U.S.
announcement. We might call this the "triumph of
disengagement."
Hearing such a firm statement from the U.S. under the
multilaterally inclined President Obama clearly shocked the
chairman from Libya and the powerful voting blocs that hold sway
over the proceedings, including the 57-member Organization of the
Islamic Conference (OIC). In order to keep the 27 nations of the
European Union from following the U.S. and boycotting en masse, the
OIC and other opponents of human rights realized that a significant
alteration of the draft outcome document was necessary.
For now, that ploy appears to have partially succeeded. Most EU
nations still plan to attend, although the Netherlands, Germany,
Sweden, Poland, and Italy -- plus Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and
Australia -- have had enough and are boycotting. Thankfully, the
U.S. was not lured back to Durban II.
As Durban II kicks off today with President Mahmoud ("Wipe
Israel off the map") Ahmadinejad of Iran headlining the agenda,
there will no doubt be much lamenting about the decisions of some
countries to skip the conference. They will be chastised for
failing to engage, or for not allowing dialogue to overcome
differences.
But what purpose is there to entering a dialogue when the other
side is not only not listening, but actively seeking to undermine
the very purpose of the conference? Durban II is not about
incrementally advancing human rights or combating racism. It's not
even about reaffirming past human-rights agreements. For many
participants, Durban II is about regressing and weakening
fundamental human rights.
While the Durban II draft document no longer contains the worst
elements of earlier drafts, it still endorses constraints on
freedom of expression and assembly. It reaffirms the 2001 document
that caused the U.S. to walk out. That is bad enough.
Furthermore, countries hostile to Israel and to freedom of
speech will have ample opportunity to reinsert worse references
into the outcome document during the conference itself. Having
numbers on their side, they are likely to succeed. Attending Durban
II would place countries that are genuinely seeking to combat
racism on the defensive. In the end, the U.S. would probably have
faced the choice of accepting an objectionable document or walking
out, as Secretary of State Colin Powell ordered the U.S. delegation
to do in 2001. And no amount of dialogue will change that.
Brett D. Schaefer and Steve
Groves are fellows at the Margaret Thatcher Center for
Freedom at The Heritage Foundation.