"The chief United Nations human rights agency, with the Obama administration's apparent blessing, is creating a new 'regional hub' for itself in Washington, to use as a center for organizing against the death penalty, among other things, and for affecting the legal frameworks, policies, and strategies of American counterterrorism.
In a management plan covering its activities through 2017, the agency, known as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, or OHCHR, puts the U.S. in the same category for that counterterrorism 'alignment' effort as countries like Iraq and Uganda...
All of those themes, along with OHCHR's view of itself as 'the principal advocate for human rights within the U.N. system,' seem likely to bring the U.S. into closer proximity to the U.N.'s tangled, proliferating and often sweepingly contradictory notions of international human rights law -- and also, perhaps, to the notoriously dictatorship-riddled, 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council.
Among other things, the Council, which has been far more enthusiastic about condemning alleged human rights transgressions in Israel than in any other nation, creates mandates for OHCHR, which also serves as the Council's bureaucratic support.
The Obama administration reversed the policies of George W. Bush to join the Council in 2009, and served consecutive three-year terms that ended last month, claiming victories during that time in focusing the Council on gay rights and criticism of human rights practices in North Korea and Iran.
While no longer on the Council, the administration now seems comfortable with bringing the U.N.'s human rights approach into closer contact with U.S. legislators, lobbyists, human rights activists and, perhaps most importantly, financial appropriators, before it leaves office at the end of next year..."