Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, posted an op-ed in the International Herald Tribune on America’s election to the Human Rights Council. In it, she calls for the United States to do more to investigate Bush-era detainee abuses: “The U.S. should also shed light into the still opaque areas that surround capture, interrogation methods, rendition and detention conditions of those alleged to have been involved in terrorism, and ensure that perpetrators of torture and abuse are held to account.” Tough words. But sometimes it takes somoene on the outside to tell us not what we want to hear–but what we need to hear. As Pillay says, “Signals coming from America reverberate around the world. Sending the right ones is the responsibility of power.”