The United States lost its seat on the top United Nations human rights body. We totally deserve this. We're trying to get into bed with China, even though they're playing hard-to-get. We owe 1.7 B$.

Joanna Weschler, the U.N. representative for Human Rights Watch, said the United States had voted ``on the wrong side of several human rights issues in the last few years,'' and lost votes among its some of its allies.

Among them were the treaty to abolish land mines, opposition to the treaty creating an International Criminal Court and rejection of a resolution calling for AIDS drugs to be made available to everyone, she said.

But it gets crazier still: Uganda, Togo, Syria, Algeria, Libya and Saudi Arabia all sit on this commission.

There are lots of problems with the UN. I don't say we should pay everything or participate fully (though I'm inclined to think both of those things without having studied it more).

More good info and commentary in the MeFi discussion.