On March 15, the United Nations General Assembly voted 170–4 to create a new Human Rights Council, effectively dissolving the oft-criticized Commission on Human Rights. Candidates for the Council will need to be elected by an absolute majority of 96 votes in order to secure a position, and once elected members can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms.

Stuart E. Eizenstat writes that for there to be any order in a post-war Iraq, reconciling the abuses endured by the marginalized minorities of the country – such as the Kurds, Marsh Arabs, and Shiite opponents of the regime – needs to be a top priority of the U.S. government. Without addressing the many grievances of these ethnic minorities, the rule of law may not be established in the near future, let alone result in any long term political and economic infrastructure.

The culture of the Ma’dan, or Marsh Arabs, is one of the oldest in the Middle East – some say around 5,000 years. Until the Persian Gulf War of 1991, the Ma’dan inhabited the extensive marshlands between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers of southern Iraq, raising buffalo, hunting and gathering, living in mudhif, their distinctive cathedral-shaped reed houses. Many have noted that their homelands encompass the Biblical Garden of Eden.