Journal of International Studies

In a history plagued with inaction, uncertainty, and a lack of consensus on human rights issues and abuses, the United Nations again proved its ineptitude this week by awarding seats on its Human Rights Council to China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Cuba and Algeria.  If you need to read that again to make sure I am being serious, feel free. The Council’s members are elected by the UN General Assembly for a 3-year term.  The 47-seat Geneva-based Council is said to be a pivotal body in monitoring and inspecting accusations of human rights abuses across the world, and in protecting the values of human security and rights on behalf of the UN General Assembly.  There are no veto votes on the Council, so a majority can still lean the Council in the right direction, but one wonders exactly how and why anyone would think it to be a good idea for states of this type to be awarded anything related to human rights, other than perhaps a “worst violators club” award. It should...

In a recent  communication  (see below) from the French Foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, announced a possible new reform of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Such announce is not surprising as France has been for quite some time been in favor of an enlargement of the U.N. Security Council, when declaring “France is in favour of a more representative UN – in particular, through enlargement of the Security Council – but we are still far from reaching an agreement that would enable such progress.” However, this reform is directly connected to the inability of the UNSC to act in Syria against the Assad regime. The core argument of this resolution from Paris seeks to suspend the right to veto in the event of mass crimes. You may call this proposition, the Syrian syndrome. The opening statement is “It has taken more than two years and 120,000 deaths in Syria for the United Nations Security Council to finally cease being paralysed by vetoes and make a d...