I have argued for some time that the United Nations is structurally incapable of fulfilling its own charter, which says the organization exists “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person” and “to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”

Now it has been revealed that fully one-third of the nations listed by Freedom House as “the world’s most repressive regimes” also happen to hold seats on the U.N.’s Commission on Human Rights. (These countries are: China, Cuba, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.)

Perhaps the theory is that the nations least likely to recognize human rights are also the ones that most understand the importance of those rights.