UN Watch

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UN Watch is a Geneva-based NGO whose mandate is to monitor the United Nations according to the principles of its charter and to promote human rights for all. ^[1] It praises United Nations actions that promote the objectives of the UN Charter, and is critical of actions that are inconsistent with or violate those principles. It has been outpoken in supporting Kofi Annan's declared goal of ending the UN's imbalanced treatment of Israel, which consumes a disproportionate amount of the organization's resources.^{[citation needed]}

UN Watch was created in 1993 by civil rights pioneer Morris B. Abram, the former President of the American Jewish Committee, former president of Brandeis University, and former vice chairman of the United States Civil Rights Commission, and one of the leading advocates for African Americans in the struggle for equality under Martin Luther King Jr.^[2]

It participates actively at the UN as an accredited NGO in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information (DPI).

1 Focuses
- 1.1 Human rights
- 1.2 Anti-Israel bias and anti-Semitism
2 Board Members
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Focuses

[edit] Human rights

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (March 2008)

[edit] Anti-Israel bias and anti-Semitism

Ian Williams writing in The Guardian newspaper claims that "UN Watch is an organisation whose main purpose is to attack the United Nations in general, and its human rights council in particular, for alleged bias against Israel."^[3]

On March 23, 2007, UN Watch's Hillel Neuer made a speech before the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Neuer criticized the body for failing to address the pressing humanitarian situations around the world and instead devoting 100 percent of its resolutions to scapegoating Israel. The UNHRC President, Luis Alfonso De Alba of Mexico responded by threatening to "remove from the record" the testimony, and said he would not "express thanks for that statement... I will not tolerate any similar statements in the Council."^[4] ^[5] It was also the most written-about NGO speech in the history of the United Nations, earning praise from the editorial and opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Sun,^[6] the Washington Times, Canada's National Post, Italy's Il Foglio and numerous other newspapers in Canada, Australia and around the world. Major blogs that praised the speech included Commentary, Foreign Policy, Atlantic Monthly magazine, and the on-line magazine Slate, which reported on the speech's blog coverage in its "Today's Blogs" column. ^[7]

On March 19, 2008, Roz Rothstein spoke to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations on behalf of UN Watch. Her speech was interrupted and objected to by the Egyptian representative because she mentioned the genocide in Darfur. The President of the Human Rights Council allowed her to continue, but was objected to by the Iranian representative when she mentioned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's record of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. Because of these objections, "Rothstein was denied the right to read her section on the anti-Semitic incitement of Hamas and Hezbollah and the murder of 8 students from Jerusalem while Hamas distributed candy in Gaza."^[8]

[edit] Board Members

Current

Alfred H. Moses, Attorney, former US Ambassador to Romania and Presidential Emissary for the Cyprus Conflict, former National President of the American Jewish Committee [1].
Per Ahlmark, former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden
Irwin Cotler, international human rights advocate, Canadian Member of Parliament since 1993, a former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, and former President of the Canadian Jewish Congress.
David A. Harris, Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee
Max Jakobson, former Finnish Ambassador to the United Nations
Ruth Wedgwood, international human rights law scholar, Johns Hopkins University

Former

Morris B. Abram, Sr., Founder of UN-Watch. Former President of the American Jewish Committee, former president of Brandeis University, and former vice chairman of the United States Civil Rights Commission.^[9]
Jeane Kirkpatrick, former US ambassador to the United Nations