I cannot help but laugh when anyone expresses surprise that the US, UK and
EU are loosing respect as the universal authority on Human Rights when they
indulge in, support, or fail to address Human Rights abuses of western
nations and tehir blatant disregard of international laws.

True, Human Rights abuses elsewhere do go much deeper but it's not a matter
of scale, it's a matter of principle. With that principle lost, political
alignment shifts rapidly. The hypocritical stance of complaining of Human
Rights abuse on one hand while condoning it on the other is more likely to
cause a tilt towards those who may be worse abusers but do not display such
hypocrisy. No one is going to be lectured on the rights to sovereignty and
the need to follow international law by those who don't believe and practice
it themslelves; it stands to reason they'll just walk away. It's human
nature.

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/sep2008/gb20080922_306246.htm?
chan=globalbiz_europe+index+page_top+stories

<quotes>

EU Influence Falls at U.N. as Russia Rises

Editorial writers around the world have called the recent Russia-Georgia war
a watershed in how Russia views the world and the world views Russia.
Moscow's response to criticism-"we don't need the G8, the WTO, and anything
the West has to offer"-has been met with handwringing over a supposedly new
multi-polar world where, in fact, Russia might not actually need the West.
And without any sticks or carrots, the West might just have to settle for a
new imperialistic Russia that will act with hubris and without regard for
the consequences.

If any more evidence was needed for that viewpoint, a new report out this
week provides plenty of ammunition. The European Council on Foreign
Relations (ECFR) has issued a detailed analysis of voting records at the
United Nations in recent years and come up with some startling conclusions.
Behind the scenes, Russia and China have successfully built coalitions at
the UN to an extent where the majority of the world's nation states are more
likely to vote with them than with the European Union, let alone the United
States.

In the late 1990s, over 70 percent of the votes cast at the UN General
Assembly on human rights issues supported EU positions; over the past two
years, such "voting consistency" has fallen to only around 50 percent. The
EU has lost the regular support of 41 former allies (including most of the
countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia). The U.S. has done even worse,
seeing its consistency on human rights votes plummet from 77 percent to a
mere 30 percent over the past decade.

Over the same time period, support for Russian positions, in contrast, has
skyrocketed from around 50 percent to 76 percent today. China came in only
slightly worse, at 74 percent.

"A pattern is emerging which points to declining EU influence throughout the
UN to promote an international rule of law based on human rights and
justice," the authors write. "That is bad news for Europe and bad news for
the world."

The Russian and Chinese mantra about protecting national sovereignty in the
face of encroaching international organizations and the United States
carries much weight around the world, especially among countries with a
democracy deficit. Moscow and Beijing, the ECFR report says, have not been
shy about teaming up with weak, developing nations against the EU or U.S.
line to generate goodwill (and future votes on their side).

Those Russia/China-led alliances have already generated very disturbing
results, including in Eastern Europe. On the UN Human Rights Council, EU
states have been consistently pitted against their opponents and have lost
over 50 percent of the votes in the council since its founding in 2006. The
arguments over national sovereignty came to a head in 2007 when Russia and
China led a drive to prevent the council from assessing any individual
country's human rights record.

Politicians from the EU countries have insisted that they still have
leverage with Russia, as the bloc represents Moscow's largest trading
partner. But the real leverage for dealing with Russia could be through
Chinese reluctance to upset its own business deals with the union and the
United States. Without the Chinese, Russia might not be so confident of
finding replacements in other parts of the world for those friends has lost
in the West.

</quotes>