Cuba has a much better human rights record than Russia, China and the USA, at least as far as their impact on other countries goes. The presence of Saudi Arabia in the Human Rights council is a much worse travesty anyway, by any measure.
If we're going by who has the best records, then you open up a whole can of worms. I agree when you say that Cuba has a better record in recent decades than Russia, the US, and China. If you go back far enough though, even Cuba had violations. And if you go back even further (Batista), you're talking about out and out horrors.
Now of course, where does that stop? Because if we go back in US, Russian, and Chinese history the violations are out and out horrible as well. Some bordering on genocide. (I'm sure if you're a native American, you would say they were genocide.)
Point is, you can't always just throw the human rights violations of great powers into their faces all the time. The countries that are doing so well today in terms of respect for human rights, all had their problems in the past. They don't have problems today probably because they are not powers, let alone great powers. If we demand a spotless past, we'd end up with nothing but, like, eswatini or something. Politically speaking, you have to have the great powers on board.
Would it be better if these powers were not as openly hypocritical as they are? Yes, but that's just how the world works. A necessary evil in my opinion. The council would mean less than it does now if there was just eswatini or botswana or something sitting there saying, "You guys have violations."
Then on 16 October 2017, in New York, the United Nations General Assembly elected Australia to serve on the Human Rights Council (HRC) for the 2018-20 term.
Witness K and the 'outrageous' spy scandal that failed to shame Australia
> To be frank, that spy scandal is not in the same genre of the other abuses that are being discussed by OP/GP and others.
I don't mind if you are frank, sushicalculus, in fact I welcome it, so long as you are informed.
In the case of East Timor, you should know that Australia was happy to stand by while Indonesia treated the East Timorese similarly to how China treats the Uyghyrs. Australia only acted after the United States lead, and then did its best to weaken the fledgling East Timor government by cheating it out of oil rights.
On the subject of Australian complicity "in the same genre of the other abuses that are being discussed by OP/GP and others", do you know what is happening in West Papua?
> So bugging a political opponent's room is comparable to exterminating an entire ethnic group?
That's your association, not mine.
I posted to illustrate that membership of a UN council doesn't require ethics or morality.
The consequences of spying on East Timor to gain an advantage in negotiations over oil reserves were that new nation's only source of foreign revenue was severely compromised. East Timorese lived in poverty and the new government was weakened. Is that so different from what bothers you about the plight of the Uyghurs?
The UN isn't and isn't supposed to be a political body. It isn't idealistic and it isn't designed to prevent human rights abuses. It is designed to prevent nuclear war between SC members. The HRC is not going to prevent or even deter human rights abuses, it never has.
The UN isn't a world government, isn't supposed to be.
Basically, the UN is a moot point. The UN is not going to do anything about Uygyur persecution in China. Neither is anti-UN shite.