Global Dispatches -- Conversations On Foreign Policy And World Affairs

When Keith Harper was confirmed as President Obama's Ambassador to the Human Rights Council he became the first American-Indian to achieve the rank of Ambassador. The longtime attorney for native American rights soon put his knowledge of tribal culture to use in Geneva where he represented the United States on the top UN human rights body.  Keith is a Cherokee Indian. He was born in San Francisco and from an early age was animated by a civil rights movement known as "Red Power." After law school he represented a number of Native Americans and Native American causes and this culminated in a billion dollar class action lawsuit against the federal government that he successfully litigated.  We spend this first few minutes of this conversation discussing the work of the Human Rights Council, so let me give you a little bit of a background on it. This is a 47 member body in which each member state is elected by the entire UN membership to three year terms. Now, one of its flaws that critics sometimes point to is t