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U.S. is not a member of the UN Human Rights Council anymore

20/6/18

The United States is set to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council, with the US ambassador to the UN calling the organisation a "protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias".
The council’s critical stance of Israel has long been a contentious issue for the US, Israel’s main ally. Ms Haley had said last year that Israel is the “only country permanently on the body’s calendar," referring to an item that looks at suspected violations in the occupied Palestinian territories. Washington had called for it to be removed.
In December the US officially recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, prompting a vote of 128-9 in the general body to declare the unilateral decision “null and void”. Last month, the council voted to probe killings in Gaza and accused Israel of using excessive force in dealing with protests on the border. The United States and Australia cast the only “no” votes.
The US has also sought to withdraw from the UN Scientific, Educational, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), citing anti-Israel bias.
"The Trump administration's withdrawal is a sad reflection of its one-dimensional human rights policy: defending Israeli abuses from criticism takes precedence above all else," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "The U.N. Human Rights Council has played an important role in such countries as North Korea, Syria, Myanmar and South Sudan, but all Trump seems to care about is defending Israel."
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called the decision "regrettable" but said the UK was "here to stay".
The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, expressed regret about the US withdrawal. The organisation’s top human rights official, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said in a tweet: “Given the state of human rights in today’s world, the US should be stepping up, not stepping back.”
Twelve rights and aids groups, including Human Rights First, Save the Children and CARE, wrote to Mr Pompeo to warn the withdrawal would “make it more difficult to advance human rights priorities and aid victims of abuse around the world".
Washington's withdrawal is the latest US rejection of multilateral engagement after it pulled out of the Paris climate agreement and the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which was signed with a number of other world powers.


It also comes as the US faces intense criticism for detaining children separated from their immigrant parents at the US-Mexico border. The decision comes a day after the U.N. human rights chief slammed the administration's policy of separating migrant parents from their children after they enter the United States at the Mexican border, calling it "unconscionable" and akin to child abuse. Mr al-Hussein has called on Washington to halt the “unconscionable” policy.
The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council is yet another step in the administration’s retreat from the world stage. Once widely viewed as a global leader on issues like human rights, the U.S. is now a marginal player, in headlong retreat from the leadership position it has occupied since World War II.
In the name of what it calls an “America First” approach, the current U.S. administration is actually leading an attempt to dismantle many of the agreements and institutions that generations of U.S. officials worked so hard to build. The decision to withdraw from the Human Rights Council is the most recent manifestation of this attempt./.


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