U.N. human rights council admits U.S.

The United States won election to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday for the first time, joining 17 other nations picked for the body, after the Obama administration ended a U.S. policy of boycotting it.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said Washington still believed the body was flawed, but added, “We are looking forward to working from within with a broad cross-section of member states to strengthen and reform the Human Rights Council.”

The United States was one of 18 countries elected or reelected to three-year terms on the 47-seat Geneva-based council in a vote by the U.N. General Assembly, joining 29 others who are in midterm.

Some nations that have faced criticism for their human rights records, including China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia, were among those elected Tuesday.

The council meets three times a year to review global rights issues, and holds special sessions on crises. It is halfway through scrutinizing the human rights situations in every U.N. member state under a new periodic review mechanism and can appoint experts to investigate abuses in specific countries.

But critics say it is dominated by Muslim countries and their allies who focus on Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and ignore abuses in developing states. The Bush administration took that view and stayed out of the council, set up three years ago to replace a discredited predecessor.

The election of the U.S. was almost assured under a system in which regional groupings of nations agree in advance on who will stand.

Only three countries vied for the three seats available for the so-called Western European and Others group after New Zealand stepped aside to make way for the United States.

That meant each needed only a simple majority, or 97, of the assembly votes. The United States got 167 votes, Norway received 179 and Belgium 177.