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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday created a new U.N. human rights body by an overwhelming majority, ignoring objections from the United States.

Ambassadors broke out in sustained applause when the vote was announced: 170-4 with 3 abstentions. Joining the United States in a "no" vote were Israel, Marshall Islands, and Palau -- but not American allies in Europe or Canada.

Belarus, Iran and Venezuela abstained.

As the pre-eminent international rights watchdog, the 47-seat U.N. Human Rights Council is to expose human rights abusers and help nations draw up rights legislation.

It would replace the 53-country Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission, which in recent years has included some of the world's most notorious rights violators.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told the assembly the rules for the new council were not strong enough to prevent rights violators from getting a seat. But he said the United States would cooperate with the body.

"We did not have sufficient confidence in this text to be able to say that the Human Rights Council will be better than its predecessor," Bolton said. "That said, the United States will work cooperatively with other member states to make the council as strong and effective as it can be."

Cuba, which had distributed four amendments, voted in favor, although it stated many objections and called the council a creation of the West, which would be used to "unjustly condemn Third World countries."

Its ambassador, Rodrigo Malierca, said, "We were never deceived by the loudmouthed objections of the Washington representatives." The text, he said, was "conceived and negotiated behind the scenes to accommodate its demands, sacrificing vital interests of the countries of the South."

U.S. RESPONSE

In response, Bolton told the assembly he could exercise his right of reply, "but on the other hand, why bother."

Many nations, including Canada and members of the European Union, as well as major human rights groups, share American misgivings. But they rejected Bolton's earlier proposal to postpone or renegotiate the council, fearing the final result would doom the entire effort.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan first proposed the new council last year as part of sweeping reforms of the world body. But his blueprint was watered down in the resolution.

Assembly President Jan Eliasson, who negotiated the text over many months, acknowledged his resolution was a compromise. But he called the council "a body that would advance the founding principles that were initiated by the General Assembly with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights" of 1948.

"The establishment of the Human Rights Council is a decision whose time has come," he said.

Austrian Ambassador Gerhard Pfanzelter, representing the European Union, pledged that the 25 EU members and associates "commit themselves not to cast their vote for a candidate that is under sanctions imposed by the Security Council for human rights-related reasons." This was one of Bolton's demands that was not included in the text.

Members in the new council will be elected by the 191-member General Assembly by a majority vote of all nations, not just those present and voting. At present they are approved in the smaller Economic and Social Council according to regional slates.

A systematic violator of human rights could be suspended from the council by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly. There is no such review now.

The seats would be distributed among regional groups: 13 for Africa, 13 for Asia, six for Eastern Europe, eight for Latin America and the Caribbean and seven for a block of mainly Western countries, including the United States and Canada.

Some how, those numbers just don't add up. Then again I've said for years, The United States, must get out of the UN.

It's a move to take more control out of the hands of the U.S. That's why those numbers are lopsided. That makes the other more oppresive countries happy as well as making the ACLU happy in their new endeavor.