Via Powerline, a case study in degenerate autocracies using the UN for cheap propaganda in the name of “human rights.” The occasion here is the U.S. having submitted its first-ever universal periodic review of its human rights record, which it’s now required to do every four years per the same UN resolution that created the Orwellian body we know as the UN Human Rights Council. That’s the same Human Rights Council that includes China, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia as members, and which counts among its accomplishments a proposed international ban on “religious defamation.” Iran, North Korea, and Cuba aren’t on the Council, but luckily for them, the universal periodic review process doesn’t limit comment to members. It’s first come, first served, to all UN participants. These three came early, and boy, did they serve:

According to the Council’s procedure, all U.N. members are given carte blanche to comment and make recommendations to the state in the docket. But since only three hours are allotted per state, the practice has emerged of allowing approximately only the first sixty to speak.

This morning fifty-six countries lined-up for the opportunity to have at the U.S. representatives, many standing in line overnight a day ago in order to be near the top of the list. Making it to the head of the line were Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and North Korea…

Iran – currently poised to stone an Iranian woman for adultery – told the U.S. “effectively to combat violence against women.”

North Korea – which systematically starves a captive population – told the U.S. “to address inequalities in housing, employment and education” and “prohibit brutality…by law enforcement officials.”

The temptation here is to frame this as an Obama problem, part of his world apology tour, etc, but that’s only half the equation. His deputies could have and should have treated this “critique” with the utter contempt it deserved, but as I noted above, we’re now obliged by resolution to account for our sins periodically to vastly worse offenders. It’s a UN problem, in other words, and it’ll remain so even after the GOP takes back the White House. And if Iran ever gets its wish to devolve more power from the Security Council to the General Assembly, our little UN problem will get even worse.