US withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council
The United States has withdrawn from the United Nations Human Rights Council, accusing it of poor performance against some countries, such as Iran, and “monotony and biased decisions” against Israel.
Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, harshly criticized the country's decision to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council at a news conference in Washington.
On Tuesday, June 19, he accused the council of weak defense of human rights and said that the institution was not worthy of its name.
Standing next to him was US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who also accused the council of "shameless hypocrisy" and said that the institution has the worst human rights representatives in the world as members.
They pointed to unacceptable members like Iran and Venezuela, which are known for repressing their own people. Nikki Haley, referring to the January 2017 protests in Iran, said the council “didn’t react.”
He accused the council of making "politically biased" decisions and said that the number of resolutions adopted against Israel in this body is much higher than the resolutions issued against Iran, Syria, and North Korea.
The US has previously accused the UN Human Rights Council of being biased against Israel. Haley called for reforms to the council a year ago, but now the US has decided not to wait for those reforms either. Nikki Haley accused the council at the time of regularly accusing Israel but acting weakly against some authoritarian states.
Haley also called for a mechanism to prevent authoritarian countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, China, Burundi, and Saudi Arabia from becoming members, while US requests have remained unanswered to date.
Israel's welcome
Israel welcomed the US move, calling it a “courageous decision.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Wednesday morning, June 20, described the US move as a decision against “the hypocrisy and lies of the so-called United Nations Human Rights Council.”
Netanyahu's office said the Human Rights Council has shown itself for years to be a "biased, hostile, and anti-Israel organization" that has "betrayed" its mandate to protect human rights. The office continued by saying that instead of addressing human rights abuses in countries, the Human Rights Council takes action against Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.
The US withdrawal from the 47-member UN Human Rights Council is a major blow to the organization's system for protecting human rights and to the organization itself. The US membership in the Human Rights Council was scheduled to end next year, but the Donald Trump administration chose to end the US membership with a major blow.
Since Donald Trump took office in the United States in January 2017, the country has reduced its cooperation with the United Nations. The United States has reduced financial contributions to the organization and has also withdrawn from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and its environmental treaty.
Source: DW
