"Iran has been elected vice-chair of the United Nations Charter Committee, a body tasked with examining and strengthening the principles of the U.N. Charter, drawing criticism from Israel and renewed scrutiny of the organization’s selection processes.
The appointment was approved during the committee’s opening meeting as part of its executive composition, through an agreed procedure and without a formal vote...
The Charter Committee operates under the U.N. Legal Committee and meets annually. Its mandate includes examining issues related to the Charter and proposing ways to reinforce its implementation, though its work typically requires consensus among member states and rarely results in binding action.
Anne Bayefsky, president of Human Rights Voices and director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, sharply criticized the move, linking it to longstanding concerns about the U.N.’s performance.
‘The U.N. created a committee back in 1974 supposedly to ‘enhance the ability of the U.N. to achieve its purposes.’ The trouble is that, ever since, the U.N. has been a downward trajectory on actually achieving its primary purposes, namely, maintaining international peace and security and promoting respect for fundamental human rights,’ Bayefsky said.
‘Given that Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and a country committed to the annihilation of the Jewish state and the bloody repression of its own people, the U.N. appointment helps clarify that in our time, U.N. purposes are in fact antithetical to peace, rights and human dignity.’
Iranian security forces allegedly killed detainees and burned bodies during protests, with clashes continuing in Kermanshah, Rasht and Mashhad despite government claims..."
