Frustration seems to be growing as the Human Rights Council (HRC), with its foundations still not settled, has been accused by some of avoiding urgent issues and failing to explicitly criticize perpetrators of human rights abuses, such as Iran 

Below is an article published by The Canadian Press:

A top Canadian rights official says member countries of the UN Human Rights Council must soon allow their own records to be scrutinized to show the body can be taken seriously. 

Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, says the 47-member council must quickly agree on the ground rules for a system of regular country reviews foreseen when the body was created more than a year ago [2006].

Western countries used the council's meeting with Arbour to highlight the growing number of executions in Iran. 

Arbour says she raised the matter with Iran during a visit there last week and expressed particular concern about death sentences handed out to juveniles in violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Arbour says she also discussed the need for the Iranian government to safeguard the right of its citizens to peaceful protest. 

Iran has cracked down on public displays of dissent in recent months.

The council, created in March 2006 to replace the widely discredited and highly politicized Human Rights Commission, has been criticized for putting more emphasis on Israel than on any other country. 

The U.S. Senate voted last week to cut off funding to the council, accusing it of regularly passing resolutions condemning Israel, while shielding countries like North Korea from criticism.

The council has not singled out any other country for criticism so far, although it has expressed concern about the human rights situation in Darfur, where tens of thousands have died in a four-year conflict between rebels and Sudan's central government. 

Rights groups said the debate over how to conduct regular country reviews has distracted the council from urgent allegations of abuse around the world.

"There are still too many delegations that want to drag out this institution-building and avoid the council getting down to its real work," William Spindler, of London-based Amnesty International, said. 

He urged the council to address violence in Sri Lanka during its three-week session in Geneva, which started Monday [10 September 2007].

"I think we could do a world tour and find quite a few situations that the council should at least be starting to look at and there's not much sign of that happening at this session," Spindler said.