Rights and wrongs

United Nations Vote on Right To Food - Sept. 16, 2006
Noting that every five seconds, a child under the age of five dies from hunger or hunger-related diseases somewhere in the world and the world already has the capacity to feed twice its current population, the resolution called for a response to food crises across Africa.

In favour - 175 countries
Against - The United States.

The U.S. representative explained that he had difficulty with the concept of food as a right.

So. No problem figuring out the right to engage in colonialist wars, or the right to extra-judicial executions, or the right to torture, or the right to spy on your citizens, or the right to rape the environment, or the right to meddle in elections of other countries or stop a recount in a US election, or the right to arrest and detain people without trial, or the right to erode freedom of the press, or the right to deal arms to nations with seriously fucked human rights records, or the right to abandon your troops to incompetent leadership, or the right to support corporate interests over those of the people, or the right to undermine those small and important legal victories which form the core of what it pleases us to call civilization.

But the right to food? That's a problem for you.

Oh yeah. And Canada abstained from recognizing the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, making this the first time Canada has not supported the resolution.
The vote :
In favour : 162 nations
Against : 4 - Israel, US, Micronesia, Palau. (formerly known as "the coalition of the willing")
Abstaining : 4 - Canada, Australia, Georgia, Haiti.

U.N. link

Correction : That would be November 16, 2006. Duh.