The Human Rights Commission of the United Nations has become so discredited that even Secretary-General Kofi Annan admits it has "cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole." But the creation of a Human Rights Council to replace the Commission, approved earlier this month by the General Assembly, will not lift the shadow of a politicized body that shields the world's worst human rights offenders from criticism. An ethos of multiculturalism, fed by a utopian vision of human societies, has infected the human rights agenda of the United Nations and many of the advocacy groups invested in its work.

EPPC Senior Fellow Joseph Loconte, who served on the bi-partisan Congressional Task Force on UN Reform, was joined by Nile Gardiner, fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, as they explored the reasons for the UN failure and mapped a way forward.

AUDIO: Illusions about Human Rights