Every year, the U.S. State Department releases a report called the International Human Rights Report which lists the worldwide human rights violations that have taken place in the last year. The list includes major violations that take place in high concern countries such as China, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and the Russian Federation.
This year the list also included Arizona, which is cited for the illegal immigration law that Governor Jan Brewer signed. Does Arizona's illegal immigration law deserve to be cited alongside China's ban on information or the woman in Saudi Arabia who received 40 lashes for having men who were unrelated inside her home last March?
The question becomes whether the U.N. Human Rights Council (which is where the International Human Rights Report was sent) should be allowed to judge and make suggestions on Arizona's situation, when the council's members include countries who are responsible for some of the "worst human rights violations" in the world?
I don't know if those on the Human Rights Council should be passing judgment, but it is hard to say who should pass judgment on these crimes/violations. You would think America would be a good country to sit in on and weigh in on discussions about human right violations, but we make them, too (albeit not in the same way as, say, Egypt.) I am not sure at this point I know enough to make an informed opinion on who should be on the U.N. Human Rights Council. My uninformed opinion is that those who continuously and repeatedly make major human rights violations should not be allowed to weigh in on the violations that occur elsewhere in the world. How would they know how to make a situation better and more humane if they can't/won't do it for their own countries?
SOURCES:
1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20100902/pl_ac/6710442_arizonas_human_rights_violations_cant_compare_to_international_atrocities
2. http://worldnews.about.com/od/theunitednations/p/humanrightscouncil.htm
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