How did the seat become lost?

Some would say that the US didn't lobby hard enough for the seat. Apparently we're actually supposed to have some sort of presence there to encourage people to vote for us. But Bush's recent nomination as ambassador to the UN, a John Negroponte, has yet to show up. It seems the Senate is still debating the worthiness of his being there. Maybe they're just envious of the House of Representatives, who've been keeping the $580 million in past dues from being paid to the UN.

Despite not having a strong voice expounding the virtues of having the US sit on the commission, the US did receive 43 "solid written assurances" from various allies that they were going to vote for the US. Yet when the secret ballots were counted, only 29 of those were actually for the US. Had the US even gotten all the votes that were "assured" of coming its way, we still would have taken a second seat to France, who had a rousing 52 votes. Sure, you can trust you'll probably be treated nicely in France, but let's not look to them to enforce correct behavior in others, shall we?

Now, because it was a secret ballot, we can't really ask the various countries why they voted against the US, but we can probably have some rather educated guesses. There's the US's own rather anti-human rights stances; such as opposing a ban to using land mines, or refusing to help set up an international criminal court, or ceasing to use the death penalty. Many of the voters from the Middle East probably voted against the US since it vetoed a recent measure to deploy UN observers on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Most of the countries probably voted against the US for political reasons - some of those reasons quite understandable. A growing number of our former allies are more and more annoyed at the new Bush administration (what, you think snubbing the Kyoto Climate Treaty wasn't going to piss people off?). Still, the majority of the voters were long time opponents of the US, and they were going to vote against us no matter what.

But it's not really surprising that they voted against us, is it? That's one of the reasons there are a large number of voters, so that long time hatreds can be smoothed over with large numbers. Heck, Russia isn't the beloved wunderkind of the UN, but Russia has been on the commission since the inception, and Russia still has it's seat on the commission.

The problem comes with large numbers; large numbers that are increasingly anti-US. While the US was pissing off enough of its allies so that there was no longer enough votes to ensure a re-election, another set of players were learning to master the UN game. Players who'd been picked on by the Human Rights Commission long enough, and learned that if enough of the of them gained control, they could run things they way they wanted.

Who's exactly on the commission now? Let's see, it includes such staunch supporters of human rights as: