The question for the Council, however, is whether you are fully meeting the high expectations which the international community has of you. What are those expectations? Most fundamentally, and in line with the very core jurisprudence of human rights, they are that this Council will recognize and promote the universal application of human rights values — and that it will do so without favour, without selectivity, without being impacted by any political machinations around the world.

If you meet this benchmark, you can count on my fullest support and defence in the face of criticisms and attacks, wherever they may come from.
[…]
For the Human Rights Council to fulfil its true promise, you must create an environment of trust. You must foster a climate where best practices thrive. You must spur greater accountability for action on human rights. That was certainly the hope of the framers of this Council, it was the conviction of the world’s Governments when they united behind it, and it was the spirit in which our predecessors drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I trust you will live up to their expectations. It is an outcome in which all humankind has a stake.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, March 3rd 2008.

Three days later the UN passed the 16th censure of Israel (it does little else) of which the Canadians said:

It was regretted that the draft resolution did not fully take into consideration the respective role of all parties and focused on Israeli action without referring to Israel’s right to defend itself. It did not present an accurate representation of the situation. For this reason Canada would vote against the resolution.

Sudan said:

Sudan was not able to consider that the Holocaust being carried out in Gaza and other Arab occupied territories was a situation between two equal sides. Israel had the most sophisticated weaponry and military. One could not compare Israel’s daily targeting against women and children with those who were fighting with primitive weapons. These crimes were categorically prohibited by international laws. Sudan did not approve of this targeting of civilians in any place and under any pretext. There were scores of victims who had loss their right to life every day, just as they previously had lost their right to live in dignity in an independent State.

In other news:

“All the hardware that we have - where did we get it from?” said Mohammed Hamdan. “Do you think we just magicked it out of the air? It belongs to the government.”
[…]
The African Union, an alliance of all 53 countries on the continent, has sent a team of observers to Darfur. According to one of their reports, Hamdan was one of three Janjaweed commanders who led an attack on the village of Adwah on Nov 30, 2004, in which women were beaten and raped and more than 200 people killed.

Now that Hamdan has disclosed his relationship with the regime, the central question is whether Khartoum will maintain its bluster and denial.