LONDON -- I am glad that March is over. The problem with the month is that it begins with the release of the U.S. State Department's annual reports on human rights violations worldwide (except in the United States, of course). Just as you come to terms with that, in the middle of the month, the six-week meeting in Geneva of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights begins detailed debate of accusations of human rights violations in U.N. member countries.
If you read the country chapters of the State Department's report and the transcripts of the U.N. debates, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that man's inhumanity to man has not slackened much since the Middle Ages.
Just about every vile practice for torturing, enslaving, abusing and exploiting people is being followed today in some countries that belong to the United Nations and that signed on to various U.N. conventions aimed at eliminating such practices.