Argentine jurist to lead UN Human Rights Committee

[forest444]

Buenos Aires Herald
March 16, 2015

Argentine jurist Fabián Salvioli was unanimously elected to lead the UN Human Rights Committee this morning. The 51-year-old lawyer will be presiding over the UN body for one year. He has been a member of the UN Human Rights Committee since 2009. The Human Rights Committee is the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Salvioli has also been critical of the Argentine Judiciary. He complained that some judges lack academic training in human rights and all too often do not have a gender perspective. “I think those magistrates should be out of the Judiciary,” he told the Herald last year. Salvioli began his career at Amnesty International and has worked in numerous human rights groups. He is also the director of the University of La Plata’s Human Rights Institute.

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/184484/argentine-jurist-to-lead-un-human-rights-committee

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At a time when much of Latin America is returning to its era of repression, dirty wars, and human rights atrocities, its good to see the international community recognize Argentina for its efforts in human rights.

[Judi Lynn]

1. It's good to see this representative from Argentina on the Human Rights Committee.

The U.S. definitely helped Argentina learn what is a human right, and what isn't! They learned the hard way, as victims of Kissinger's political allies.

[forest444]

2. No doubt about that.

But they also learned the U.S. could produce men of stature. People like President Carter and Secretary Cyrus Vance, who were no loose cannons but didn't check their integrity at the White House door.

I like President Obama; but he's been far too willing to needlessly concede crucial points to everyone from Wall Street banksters, to health insurance swindlers, to petty, corrupt foreign policy extremists of the kind that serve to undermine U.S. interests and should be nowhere near the State Department.

I mean, compare Carter's active opposition to dirty wars in Argentina and elsewhere then, to Obama's almost complete obliviousness to the dirty wars in Colombia, Honduras, and Mexico now:

[Judi Lynn]

3. I wonder if it's because he is too young to have learned much about it,

and never really picked up the significance..... Also, maybe being outside the country for part of his childhood could have distanced his awareness of essentials areas. Kids raised right in the States also were clearly mislead about the human rights issues from the very first. What we learned later usually came because we had inquiring minds and started questioning things ourselves, looking for the answers.

It's a real tragedy.

Unless something awakens him fast all his chances will have flown to start repairing the horrendous crimes committed already in our names by the sleazy human-shaped monsters who wormed their way into our government in the past.

[forest444]

4. A real insight there; that may have indeed have something to do with it.

It's sometimes easy to forget that public figures are people too, and that what they learned in their youth may be too much to overcome even by self-evident realities. And in Obama's case, he's inundated daily by hostile intelligence estimates that are drawn up almost exclusively by right-wing zealots in the intelligence services - holdovers from the Cold War even now.

Lacking real evidence or even indications of "threats", their first recourse is always petty gossip tactics. Instead of focusing on actual deeds, it's always easier to fall back on the same old "d'you hear what he or she said about America and about you? Oooh!" - and Obama has unfortunately proven to be fairly thin-skinned in a line of work which, as Hillary put it, requires a skin like a rhinoceros. His far-right ear-whisperers know that about him, and exploit it to the max.