Regrettably, its OIC members have been more interested in using the Council to promote their anti-Israel political agenda than to promote human rights—and to the fledgling body’s great detriment, they have been able to do so. They have been aided in this endeavor not only by repressive regimes like China, Cuba, and Russia but also by some of the Council’s free, democratic members—Argentina, Brazil, India, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, and Uruguay—from whom one would expect better. Only a minority of eleven Council members—Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom— have consistently defended the values and principles that the Council is supposed to promote.

The result? In its three sessions to date, the Council has ignored the vast majority of the world’s human rights violations. Even the dire situation in Darfur merited only passing mention by a few members, and resulted in no statement or action by the Council against Sudan. Instead, the OIC-dominated Council devoted most of its debate, 100% of its country-specific resolutions, two special sessions, one “fact-finding” mission, and a “high-level commission of inquiry” to one-sided, politically motivated condemnations of Israel. It said nothing when its subsidiary body,the Sub-Commission, broke its own most basic rules in order to one-sidedly condemn Israel as well. It also enacted a resolution on another OIC cause célèbre, condemning “incitement to religious hatred” and “defamation of religions”—an attempt to legitimize last year’s violent reaction to Danish cartoons and to silence Middle Eastern dissidents by equating democracy with blasphemy.