The United Nations Human Rights Council is an international body within the United Nations System. Its stated purpose is to address human rights violations. The Council is the successor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which was often criticized for the high-profile positions it gave to member states that did not guarantee the human rights of their own citizens.

The United Nations General Assembly voted on 15 March 2006 to create the new human rights body, with the resolution receiving approval from 170 members of the 191-nation Assembly. Only the United States, the Marshall Islands, Palau, and Israel voted against the Council's creation, claiming that it would have too little power and that there were insufficient safeguards to prevent human rights-abusing nations from taking control. Belarus, Iran and Venezuela abstained from the vote, and a further seven countries (Central African Republic, North Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Georgia, Kiribati, Liberia and Nauru) were absent from the session.

Council structure

The 47-seat Human Rights Council replaces the former 53-member Commission on Human Rights. The Commission was an independent body, but the Council has been elevated to the status of a subsidiary body of the Assembly. The 47 seats in the Council are distributed among the UN's regional groups as follows: 13 for Africa, 13 for Asia, 6 for Eastern Europe, 8 for Latin America and the Caribbean, and 7 for the Western European and Others Group.

In an attempt to remedy problems of the former Commission, which was criticized among other actions for the election of Libya to its chairmanship in 2003, the resolution establishing the Council specified that "members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights" and will be subject to periodic review. Each member nation of the Council must be approved individually and directly by a majority (96 of 191) of the members of the General Assembly, in a secret ballot. Council membership is limited to two consecutive terms, and any Council member may be suspended by a two-thirds vote of the Assembly.

Members

Members of the Council are elected to staggered three-year terms. The first election of members was held on 9 May 2006. The successful candidates were:

* African States: Algeria, Cameroon, Djibouti, Gabon, Ghana, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia and Zambia.

* Asian States: Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Sri Lanka.

* Eastern European States: Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation and Ukraine.

* Latin American & Caribbean States: Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.

* Western European & Other States: Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Their terms of office began on 19 June 2006. On 19 May it was announced that Mexico would serve as the Council's chair during its first year of existence.