Have the Obama Administration kissed goodbye to some key Western values at the UN to placate global Islamists?

Anne Bajevsky says "Hell, yes".

A less angry but still concerned view here at Volokh Conspiracy:

The resolution generally seems to be an attempt to urge more protection for free speech throughout the world, and some praise it for that; moreover, it lacks the exception for “defamation of religion” that some Muslim countries have urged. It may therefore be a step forward for Egypt, and an attempt to urge a step forward for some other countries.

But I’m worried that it might be a step backward for our own constitutional rights, because of what seems to be the U.S. endorsement of the suppression of “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence” and possibly of “negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups.” I say “seems to be” because some of the language in the resolution is pretty slippery, and of course it’s always possible that I’m misunderstanding it.

This (I think) is the offending (or not) Resolution by the Human Rights Council in its final form. Some of it is OK. Some of it is the usual grim UN collectivism.

The key passage:

expresses its concern that incidents of racial and religious intolerance, discrimination and related violence, as well as of negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups continue to rise around the world, and condemns, in this context, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, and urges States to take effective measures, consistent with their international human rights obligations, to address and combat such incidents;

This passage is the rambling compromise formula needed to see off this time round demands from Islamic states for a new Wrong of ‘defaming a religion’, which in turn is an attempt to make ‘respect for Islam’ a legal phenomenon that trumps freedom of speech as a whole.

It is, of course, a disgrace that the Western countries on this Council did not demand as a price for including any such passage an expression of concern that in many states one religion is used by the authorities to foment hatred of – if not outright bannings of – other religions, and that insofar as ‘negative stereotyping’ of religions goes on it is often other religions themselves which are the busiest offenders.

But that would mean taking the fight to the philosophical enemy. Which in turn requires having principles and determination.

And if we had had those, we never would have accepted the establishment of the Human Rights Council in the first place.

Of course others could say that in return for accepting some obscure and non-binding exhortations favoured by Islamists we have in fact brought them to sign up to a text which is (as such horrible things go) not too bad for us. That’s the reality of UN diplomacy. We won!

Maybe. But part of getting a good outcome is projecting robust determination on one’s own core principles. And once you start negotiating with repressive non-democratic regimes on such texts, the philosophical basis for the discussion ends up being a compromise between Good and Bad, Freedom and Not-Freedom.

Not a single good thing can come from these absurd Council chunterings – see for example the platform it gives to Cuba to tell stupid lies:

RODOLFO REYES RODRIGUEZ (Cuba), in an explanation of the vote before the vote, said that freedom of opinion and expression was crucially important for Cuba. Cuba therefore commended the efforts that had been invested to establish a consensus on the adoption of this resolution. Nevertheless … Freedom of opinion and expression could not be carried out without access to information; there were millions of illiterates, and they did not have this freedom of expression.

Sure, illiteracy among poor people is a problem. But free markets and cheap IT networks are the answer there. Sorted.

Given the heroic efforts made by Cuba for decades to keep its own people impoverished and deny its own people access to information, there is simply nothing to be said for using precious diplomatic time and energy to let Cuba brazenly argue the opposite.

So just don’t go there. Don’t play this game. Do something else.