The United Nations human rights commission, the UN's principal forum for promoting human rights, opens its annual six-week session today amid unprecedented criticism of its competence and credibility.

For years human rights groups have complained of growing politicisation and double standards that have stifled debate and allowed countries responsible for egregious abuses to escape condemnation. Last year, for instance, resolutions on China, Chechnya, Zimbabwe and the US detainees at Guantánamo Bay all failed.