UK at UN

I was somewhat appalled to hear that the UN's Human Rights Commission was approved overwhelmingly, by a vote of 170-4. The four countries who voted "no" were the USA, Israel, Marshall Islands and Palau. To be perfectly honest I've never even heard of Palau before. I have now.

The "no" vote was raised over objections that the new resolution did not do enough to punish those who violate human rights. US Ambassador John Bolton has this to say,

It should not ever be said that the United Nations Member States were willing to “settle for good enough, for a compromise, for merely the best we could do”, rather than for [a Council] that ensured that Governments were doing all they could to promote human rights.

I was interested to hear why the United Kingdom had seen fit to not oppose the measure but there's no explanation. While the UK did vote "yes", we left it up to Austria to speak for us "on behalf of the European Union". Good to know that we've kept our independence?

Anyway, this is what Austria had to say,

"While not everything the Union had aimed for was reflected in the resolution, it represented an improvement over the Commission on Human Rights, and would further strengthen the United Nations human rights machinery."

Sounds to me that Bolton's stance is exactly right. And Austria- on behalf of the UK and others- seems to agree. This new resolution is just an "improvement", not what the member states had been aiming for.