GENEVA, Switzerland, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- A U.S. delegation defended the country's human-rights record Friday before a U.N. panel in Geneva.
The delegation was headed by Esther Brimmer, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, Voice of America reported. It was the first time the country has submitted to a Universal Periodic Review.
Brimmer said the U.S. human-rights record is built on the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution.
"This morning's presentation therefore is not the end, but only a milestone in our long-term engagement to promote our human-rights aspirations," Brimmer said. "We have approached this process with a seriousness of purpose of a commitment to engage genuinely with comments and questions raised in good faith."
Delegates from other countries were each given 2 minutes to question the U.S. record.
A Cuban official criticized the longtime embargo, describing it as genocidal. Ambassador Rodolfo Reyes Rodriguez also demanded criminal trials for those responsible for human-rights abuses at Guantanamo and other overseas prisons.
But some of the closest allies, including Britain and Australia, questioned the continued use of the death penalty in the United States.
