CONTROVERSY CRASHES THE PARTY

Officials from all over the world gathered in San Francisco last week to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter, the first of many occasions on which the U.N. will honor itself in the coming months. Yet even as the anniversary festivities began, two incidents roiled up to illustrate how difficult the U.N. finds it to live up to its own principles. Foreseeably, both controversies were related to human rights, the issue that has often forced the U.N. to compromise the idealism of its origins.

The first involved Freedom House, the New York City-based human-rights organization....