Venezuela just won a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, though it transparently does not “uphold the highest standards” on rights, as members are supposed to.

The nation’s rulers are destroying it. Food and medicine are scarce, vaccine-preventable diseases are spreading and maternal and infant mortality are soaring. The government routinely tortures political prisoners and, according to a July UN report, death squads break into homes, assault women and execute the men.

More than 10 percent of Venezuela’s 30 million people have fled the country.

“That one of the world’s worst human-rights abusers would be granted a seat on a body that is supposed to defend human rights is utterly appalling,” noted US Ambassador Kelly Craft, rightly calling it “an embarrassment to the United Nations and a tragedy for the people of Venezuela.”

Then again, other HRC members include China, Saudi Arabia and Cuba — all with horrible rights issues. Oh, and two other newbies, Maureitania and Sudan, are also better fitted for a Human Wrongs Council.

The simple truth is that most of the countries that elect the HRC’s members just don’t care about rights, but only for the interests of whoever runs the government back home.

It’s long past time that anyone saw the United Nations as possessing a shred of moral authority.