Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations Esther Brimmer

Washington — The Obama administration is “deeply committed to international human rights issues and to the United States being an active player in advancing universal standards,” said Esther Brimmer, President Obama’s newly appointed assistant secretary for the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs.

Speaking to America.gov, Brimmer said the Obama administration is seeking a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council while being aware that critics of the council believe it has been ineffective.

“The council has been troubled during its history,” Brimmer said, “but the best way to really try to grapple [with] serious problems on the council is from the inside as a member.”

The Human Rights Council is an intergovernmental body within the United Nations system made up of 47 elected members whose mission is to strengthen the promotion and protection of human rights globally. Seats on the council are held for three years and are distributed among the United Nation’s regional groups: 13 seats for Africa; 13 for Asia; six for Eastern Europe; eight for Latin America and the Caribbean; and seven for Western Europe and other states (including those from North America.)

Some of the current and past members — China and Cuba, for example — have weak records for protecting human rights in their own countries.

In addition, there have been concerns over how the council deals with Israel. Between 2006 and 2008, for example, Israel was condemned 15 times.

“There has been a serious problem in the council in that it has been obsessed with Israel, and that is unfair, and we do not think that one country should be singled out separate from all of the others,” Brimmer said. “Unfortunately, there are several countries with serious human rights issues. Those should be looked at, and we shouldn’t just focus on just one country.”

“We very much want to encourage fairness and balance in our approach in the council,” Brimmer said. “But it’s important to be there to make that case, rather than allow many others who are not trying to be fair and balanced [to] seize the agenda.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice announced March 31 that the United States will seek a seat on the council this year, saying the decision is in keeping with the Obama administration’s “new era of engagement” with other nations to advance American security interests and to meet the global challenges of the 21st century.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the announcement. “Full U.S. engagement on human rights issues is an important step toward realizing the goal of an inclusive and vibrant intergovernmental process to protect human rights around the globe,” the secretary-general said.

The United States has been a leader on human rights issues, Brimmer said. It is a priority for the Obama administration, she said, “that in addition to the work we do bilaterally, that there’s an important multilateral component — and the United Nations is the center of the component.”

Brimmer added, “It is also important that the United States be active across the U.N. system, and there are many different parts of the U.N. system active on human rights. … The United States wants to behave creatively about all these different mechanisms, but we need to be involved in all of the major methods, and that includes the council.”

Brimmer said the Obama administration is not hesitant about taking on tough issues, noting President Obama’s decision during his first days in office to begin the process of closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Brimmer comes to the State Department from Johns Hopkins University, where she served as deputy director and director of research at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, part of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. She previously worked for the State Department from 1999 to 2001 as a member of the Office of Policy Planning working on European Union, Western Europe, U.N. and multilateral security issues.

She served on the U.S. delegation to the United Nations on human rights in 2000. From 1993 to1995, she served as special assistant to the under secretary of state for political affairs, where she worked on U.N., peacekeeping, human rights and political-military issues.

For more, see “U.S. to Run for Election to the U.N. Human Rights Council” and the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs Web site.