There is an old joke about a man walking around under a street light who was asked by a passerby what he was doing. The man replied that he was looking for his car keys that had fallen out of his pocket when he got out of the car. The passerby pointed out that the car was parked on the other side of the street and asked why the man was looking on the wrong side of the street, The man replied, “The light is better over here.” That is what is currently happening at the United Nations.

Yesterday The Washington Examiner reported that the United Nations Human Rights Council is holding an “urgent” debate on police brutality and systemic racism.

The article reports:

While the UNHRC president says the debate is not just about the United States, it’s clear the U.S. is the primary subject as the killing of George Floyd was the catalyst for the meeting. And it’s clear that the conclusion the council will reach is a sham.

The article notes some of the history of the United Nations Human Rights Council:

The council is an abomination because most of the countries it should be examining are sitting members of the body. China and Cuba were members until the end of last year. Qatar, which has been using slave labor to build stadiums for the 2022 World Cup, is a sitting member. Nicolas Maduro’s socialist dictatorship didn’t stop Venezuela from becoming a member this year, nor did Libya’s human rights abuses or Mauritania’s slavery.

There’s a reason the Human Rights Council was the original whipping boy of U.N. critics before the World Health Organization was revealed to be a Chinese puppet. “The Human Rights Council is a poor defender of human rights, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said when the U.S. withdrew from the council in 2018, “But worse than that, the Human Rights Council has become an exercise in shameless hypocrisy with many of the world’s worst human rights abuses going ignored.”

The U.S. was right in its assessment in 2018, and the show trial that council members will make of the U.S. won’t mean much of anything. But in principle, the Human Rights Council’s existence is just an exercise in appeasing real human rights abusers. Between this and the World Health Organization’s debacle over the coronavirus and China, it’s time for Americans to start considering real alternatives to the U.N.

I guess the way to avoid criticism by the United Nations for civil rights violations is to actually be a member of the Human Rights Council. At least that is the way it has worked so far.