UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- The creation of a new UN human rights body the United States opposes was to be adopted, killed or watered down yesterday in a tense 191-nation General Assembly session.

Assembly President Jan Eliasson, who spent months negotiating a compromise, put the issue on the assembly's agenda for yesterday in hopes it would be adopted without changes. But negotiations on establishing the Human Rights Council are being conducted until the meeting begins.

UN members want American support for the proposed new Human Rights Council to bolster its international authority. However, Washington believes the body lacks a means to prevent major rights violators from getting a seat and it would be too hard to suspend a major abuser.

Many nations, including Canada and members of the European Union, share American misgivings. But they rejected U.S. Ambassador John Bolton's proposal to postpone or renegotiate the council, fearing the final result would doom the entire effort.

The proposed council of 47 members is a watered-down version of reforms submitted by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan last March.

It is to replace the 53-nation Geneva-based UN Human Rights Commission, which drafted the landmark Universal Declaration of Human Rights under Eleanor Roosevelt's leadership. In more recent years it has included some of the world's most abysmal rights violators.

At issue in the General Assembly is whether the United States would call for a vote rather than let the measure pass by consensus or acclamation and then state its objections.

Eliasson fears a vote could open the door for amendments from Cuba and others that have been the target of human rights resolutions and would result in a weaker or no resolution.

"But I hope he (Eliasson) asks for a consensus because the voting scenario is not a good scenario," Pakistan's UN Ambassador Munir Akram told Reuters.