In a speech in September 1960, presidential candidate John F Kennedy told a New York audience that “we can no longer put our faith in war as a method of settling international disputes. We can no longer tolerate a world which is like a frontier town, without a sheriff or a magistrate”. Unfortunately, as confirmed this summer in the Gaza conflict, one of the world’s leading magistrates, the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, is plainly not capable of performing this essential function.

The council has the important role of identifying and publicising human rights breaches by states. The hope, and sometimes the reality, is that states will be reluctant to act in breach of international human rights norms if their conduct will be