"To Preserve and Build on its Achievements and to Redress its Shortcomings": The Journey from the Commission on Human Rights to the Human Rights Council

In recent years the UN Commission on Human Rights has been widely and severely castigated for its failures to live up to the vision of being a genuine protector of victims of human rights abuses and instead becoming a shield for the violators. This article provides an assessment of these criticisms of the Commission by exploring its historical beginnings, its notable achievements, and its manifest shortcomings, and then analyzes how these and other factors came into play when the membership of the United Nations decided to replace the Commission with the new Human Rights Council.