US set to regain UN human rights seat

The United States regained its seat on the United Nations Human Rights Commission on 29 April 2002, bringing to a close a bitter chapter in US-European relations. In 2001 the US failed to win a seat it had held without interruption since the Commission's inception in 1947. The US's exclusion is believed to have been brought about by European nations, disgruntled at President Bush's unilateralist tendencies and his pursuit of a national missile defence shield.