United States Withdraws from UN Human Rights Council

The United States has withdrawn from the United Nations Human Rights Council. The United States has accused the council of poor performance against certain countries such as Iran and “bias and prejudiced decisions” against Israel.

Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, announced the country’s decision to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council at a press conference in Washington with sharp criticism.

On Tuesday, June 19 (June 29 in the Persian calendar), she accused the council of weakly defending human rights and said that the body does not deserve its name.

Standing beside her was Mike Pompeo, U.S. Secretary of State, who also accused the council of “shameless hypocrisy” and said that the worst human rights representatives in the world are members of this body.

They pointed to unacceptable members such as Iran and Venezuela, which are known for suppressing their own people. Nikki Haley, referring to the December 2017 protests in Iran, said that at that time this council “showed no reaction.”

She accused the council of adopting “politically biased decisions” and said that the number of resolutions passed against Israel in this body is far greater than the number of resolutions issued against Iran, Syria, and North Korea.

The United States had previously accused the UN Human Rights Council of holding a hostile stance against Israel. Haley had called for reforms in this council a year earlier, but now the United States has decided not to wait for these reforms. At that time, Nikki Haley had accused the council of regularly condemning Israel while acting weakly against some authoritarian countries.

Haley had also called for a mechanism to prevent authoritarian countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, China, Burundi, and Saudi Arabia from being members, while the U.S. requests have remained unanswered to this day.

Israel’s Welcome

Israel welcomed the U.S. action and called it a “courageous decision.” The office of Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, on the morning of Wednesday, June 20, described the U.S. action as a decision against the “hypocrisy and lies of the so-called UN Human Rights Council.”

Netanyahu’s office announced that the Human Rights Council has shown for years that it is “a biased, hostile, and anti-Israel organization” that has “betrayed” its duties, which are to protect human rights. The office continued that instead of addressing human rights violations in countries, the Human Rights Council has acted against Israel, which is the only democracy in the Middle East.

The withdrawal of the United States from the UN Human Rights Council, which has 47 members, is considered a heavy blow to the United Nations system for protecting human rights and to the organization itself. The United States’ membership in the Human Rights Council was scheduled to end next year, but the Donald Trump administration preferred to end the U.S. membership with a heavy 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 assistance to the organization and has also withdrawn from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the organization’s environmental treaty.

Source: DW