From Ted Piccone, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director at the Brookings Institution, in an article about why the United States needs to remain on the UN Human Rights Council:
And why was Libya elected to the Council in the first place? In the quickly forgotten recent era of constructive engagement with Tripoli, it was not all that surprising it got elected in the face of no other competition on the African slate. Where there has been competition, states with bad human rights records have been defeated, including Iran, Venezuela, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Sri Lanka. And with Libya’s expulsion, a new precedent has been set that egregious violators will be removed.
If the trend continues, Syria will soon be added to this list.
