President Obama’s new openness may suggest a fresh start to American foreign policy, but the US has not altered its basic objections to the Council’s procedures and decisions. Failures of the Council’s predecessor, the Human Rights Commission, had been attributed to politicisation and bias.

Since the Commission’s dissolution, the US had warned against a repeat of the Commission’s failures. Disgruntled that those warnings were ignored, the US withdrew its observer status in 2008. America’s critics dismiss such gestures, blaming that uneasy relationship with the Council on the Americans’ desire to avoid scrutiny their own human rights record.

This article examines such recurring claims and counter-claims. Notwithstanding the poisoned international atmosphere created by the Bush administration, it is argued here that many Council members, as well as official mandate holders, did indeed abuse the Council’s procedures. The result was an excessive focus on the US and American interests, to the exclusion of serious human rights violations elsewhere in the world.

Using the example of Council inaction on Darfur, evidence is examined to confirm initial fears that the Council would fail to avoid the politicisation that had undermined the Commission. A major cause of the Council’s inaction on Darfur was the collective determination of politically allied states to shift attention away from Sudan and to weaken any resolution that might be passed.

This article examines the Council’s discussions, both centring on Sudan and its general debates, in order to ascertain the positions taken by the main regional groups. The article highlights the tactics used by supporters of the Sudanese government to ensure weakened action.