The UN Human Rights Council came under fire again Wednesday for failing to call a special session on the violence in Tibet and for electing two controversial experts. ( dpa )
The appointment of American Professor Richard Falk as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories brought instant criticism from Israel.
Falk had compared the treatment of Palestinians by the Israelis with the holocaust in an article that appeared in the Palestine Chronicle in July.
Israelis ambassador in Geneva Itzhak Levanon told the Council that a man who had charged Israel with "genocidal tendencies" could not possibly be considered "independent, impartial or objective."
The Swiss sociologist Jean Ziegler, challenged over his alleged support of a number of authoritarian regimes such as Cuba and Libya, was chosen by majority vote to sit on the council's new advisory think tank committee.
A number of human rights activists backed by 20 non-governmental organizations had lobbied the Swiss Government over its support of Ziegler as candidate, questioning his impartiality.
He has sparked controversy during his eight year term as UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food which comes to an end this summer.
Executive director of the Geneva-based UN monitoring group UN Watch, a non-governmental organization, Hillel Neuer said the lack of a resolution or special session on Tibet was "a glaring sore."
On Wednesday the Council session was suspended after the US ambassador Warren Tichenor used a debate to criticise China's refusal to allow access to journalists in Tibet.
The Chinese ambassador Qian Bo replied that the Tibet issue was solely China's internal affair and outside the remit of the Council.
The Council has been holding its seventh regular session in Geneva which is due to end this week.