Outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, gave her last speech to the Human Rights Council on June 10, 2014 and took the opportunity to condemn the United States before mentioning Iran.
The "horrific" human rights violations of the U.S. - to use Pillay's word - were the two legal executions in Ohio and Oklahoma in 2014 where procedures failed unintentionally during the execution phase. Only after condemning the U.S., did she mention that Iran has deliberately executed more than 200 people already this year for crimes that international law says do not warrant the death penalty at all.
Before the U.S. or Iran, came Pillay's favorite whipping boy on her list of human rights "priorities" - Israel. Pillay was "deeply troubled" by alleged "excessive use of force" by Israel. She was not troubled by Palestinian terrorism. On the contrary, Palestinians were "commended" for just ratifying treaties (that they have no intention of implementing).
Throughout her time in office, Pillay cast herself as a third world champ, standing up to the big bad democracies in the Western world. In this last speech she played the same card, using extreme epithets when it came to the US and Israel, but having this to say about the forty-two dead in Venezuela since February: "I have engaged the Government of Venezuela...emphasizing the importance of dialogue and engagement."
Here is her final rundown of all the states with human rights issues she deemed worth mentioning - though blameworthiness was markedly uneven and in some cases totally absent: South Sudan, Central African Republic, Syria, Israel, Venezuela, the United States, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan, "Western Europe," Ukraine, Sri Lanka, North Korea and Turkey. No Russia. No China. No Cuba. No Saudi Arabia...and on and on. The list sums up her time in office and the billions of people she routinely ignored.
Pillay is a native of Durban and made resurrecting the antisemitic Durban Declaration a central plank of her six years in office. Out of the starting gate she promoted and headed the 2009 "Durban Review Conference" - which resulted in a document reaffirming the Durban Declaration. The conference is best remembered by the rest of the world for its opening act - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - who took the opportunity of Pillay's "anti-racism" venue to question the Holocaust. Western democracies either boycotted the conference or walked out during his Hitler-like tirade, while Pillay remained glued to her seat on the podium. Leaving office, however, she is apparently hoping for collective amnesia and attempted to re-write her own history. She told the assembled on June 10, 2014: "the Durban Review Conference... resulted in a landmark plan of action that sets a principled international agenda for the global movement against racism and discrimination."
Navi Pillay dragged the position of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to a new low. A woman who either could not tell the difference between right and wrong or who believed that political expediency came first. The real victims of human rights abuse that she left languishing do not much care why she abandoned them. They will not remember her fondly, if at all.