Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: “I rise today to voice my objections to the proposed United Nations Human Rights Council. The proposal offered by the…”

“I rise today to voice my objections to the proposed United Nations Human Rights Council. The proposal offered by the U.N. General Assembly President is a far cry from the reforms that we envisioned just a year ago. If adopted as is, the proposed Council could continue the U.N.'s roll down to irrelevance and would inhibit the efforts of the United States to promote and protect human rights worldwide. Mr. Speaker, in creating the United Nations, an entity born from the ashes of the Holocaust and the struggle against tyranny in World War II, the nations of the world committed themselves to one goal: ``Never again.'' We would never again tolerate violations of fundamental freedoms and liberties endowed to each and every human being. A Commission on Human Rights was established to ensure that we would not waver in this commitment. It sought to protect the oppressed while holding the oppressors accountable for their actions. However, this commission has become a rogue's gallery, a country club for pariah states, a speaker's forum for dictators. No farmer would designate a fox to guard his henhouse. No member of the international community in 1945 would have Heimler serve as a judge in Nuremberg; yet the United Nations deemed it acceptable and credible to have the likes of China, Cuba, Iran, and Sudan to sit on its Human Rights Commission. We had to take action. As a result, the U.N.…”