Obama team seeks seat on UN rights body

US President Barack Obama's administration announcedit will run in May for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council -- a body the Bush administration had shunned.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said the United States wanted a seat to help reform the body from within, according to the State Department.

Speaking to reporters later, Rice echoed criticism from those in the former Bush administration and in Congress who said the Geneva-based body routinely demonized Israel but ignored human rights abuses in other parts of the globe.

But she said the only way to change it was to join it.

Gordon Duguid, a department spokesman, said the new administration took the decision as part of efforts to re-engage with the world community -- which had charged that the Bush administration acted on its own and even illegally.

The move was hailed by UN chief Ban Ki-moon.

"Full US engagement on human rights issues is an important step toward realizing the goal of an inclusive and vibrant intergovernmental process to protect human rights around the globe," Ban said in a statement.

Clinton, who is traveling in Europe, was quoted as saying "human rights are an essential element of American global foreign policy" while vowing that Washington will work with others to carry out UN principles on human rights.

"We believe every nation must live by and help shape global rules that ensure people enjoy the right to live freely and participate fully in their societies," she said in a statement released by the State Department.

In a conference call with UN correspondents, Rice pledged that if elected, the United States would work to reform the body when it faces a review in 2011 of its structures and procedures.

"We're very committed to bring about the serious reform that the council needs," ambassador to the UN said.

"The principal problem is there has been too little focus on the most egregious abuses of human rights... and too much focus, unbalanced focus we believe, on other issues that don't merit the amount of time," she said.

"Yes, of course we mean Israel," Rice added.

The next round of elections to the Council will be held on May 15 in the UN General Assembly in New York when members will be elected to a three-year term.

Former president George W. Bush's administration opposed the council after it was set up in March 2006 and refused to be a member.

The Bush administration asserted the body had lost credibility because of its repeated criticism of Israel and what it called a failure to confront major rights abusers.

But critics abroad said the United States, during Bush's term in office, had lost credibility on human rights over alleged torture of terrorism suspects in the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and in Iraq.

"ADL had urged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to seek reform of the Council before deciding to join it," it said in a statement.





giant advertisement in Tokyo. AP/Katsumi Kasahara