Democracies Should Quit the UN Human Rights Council

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Of the many bodies at the UN, perhaps the worst – worse even than the General Assembly – is the UN Human Rights Council. It is highly selective in its indignation. China, a member of the UNHRC, imprisons and reeducates one, two, possibly even three million Uighurs. But no one at the UNHRC will ever call China to account. Another current member, Pakistan, imprisons Christians who have been accused of “blasphemy” by Muslims settling personal scores. No one bothers about Pakistan. Russia attempts to murder enemies of the state, even when those “enemies” are abroad. Putin’s men murdered Alexei Navalny and Pavel Litvinenko, and tried to murder, with the Novichok nerve agent, Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia, in placid Salisbury, England. But no one is thinking of putting Russia in the dock at the UNHRC. Other members of the UNHRC include Cuba, a wretched Communist dictatorship, and Venezuela, an even more wretched Communist dictatorship, with four million of its citizens now having fled abroad. Among the UNHRC’s 47 members are other splendid examples of democracy and human rights such as Bangladesh (where Hindus, Christians, and Buddhists are persecuted and sometimes murdered), Mauritania (with its 170,00 black slaves of Arab masters), and Libya (with its open-air African slave markets).

The UNHRC does have on its permanent agenda, to be taken up for discussion and a vote at every session, the human rights “violations” of exactly one country, Israel. This is the infamous Item Seven, with resolutions to be taken up concerning “human rights in Palestine and the occupied Arab territories.”

Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said after the 2020 UNHRC elections: “Today’s Human Rights Council elections prove once again that this council has nothing to do with protecting human rights and everything to do with violating them. Since 2006, the council has adopted 90 resolutions condemning Israel, more than all the resolutions against Syria, North Korea and Iran, combined. The obsessive focus on Israel, along with its protection of oppressive, dictatorial regimes, shows that the Human Rights Council is in the business of white-washing the crimes of these countries. I call on all democracies that are still members of the council to immediately resign from this shameful and antisemitic body.”

Erdan was right to point out the “obsessive focus” on Israel, which has been the constant target of UNHRC resolutions under Item Seven for its supposed “violations” of the rights of Palestinians. In the last 14 years, 90 resolutions at the UNHRC have condemned Israel, which many will be astounded to learn is “more than all the resolutions” that in the same period were passed against three of the worst violators of human rights on the planet – Syria, North Korea, and Iran.

The focus on Israel has been noted by two recent Secretaries-General of the U.N. The first was Kofi Annan. In his speech to open the 61st General Assembly of the United Nations in September 2006, Annan admitted that Israeli is often unfairly judged at the UN: “On one side, supporters of Israel feel that it is harshly judged by standards that are not applied to its enemies. And too often this is true, particularly in some UN bodies.” The other was Ban Ki-moon, who, speaking to the Security Council on December 17, 2016, expressed his opinion that the UN has had a “disproportionate focus on Israel” that has “foiled the ability of the UN to fulfill its role effectively.” The Secretary-General explained that “decades of political maneuvering have created a disproportionate number of resolutions, reports and committees against Israel.”

Some have argued that by staying in the UNHRC, the United States can work “from the inside” to change its anti-Israel stance. But the U.S. has endured decades of anti-Israel resolutions from the UNHRC, while remaining “inside,” without being able to produce any change in its voting. The Trump administration stayed in as a council member from 2016 to 2018, but having failed to sway other council members not to vote reflexively against Israel, decided it could no longer tolerate this situation. The U.S. resigned from the UNHRC in 2018, halfway through its term, citing the “chronic bias” against Israel. When the most important country in the world quits an organization like the UNHRC, that organization suffers a loss of prestige and political clout. And NGOs such as UN Watch regularly hold up for critical public inspection the anti-Israel goings-on at the General Assembly, the Security Council, and – the most egregious of all – the UNHRC.

If Trump is reelected, I expect the U.S. to leave the UNHRC again. I also expect full-court press from Trump’s new secretary of state to convince current members of the UNHRC with a record of abstaining on, or even voting against, anti-Israel resolutions in the General Assembly or Security Council, such as Great Britain, Germany, Brazil, and Denmark, to consider threatening to leave the UNHRC if Item Seven (on Israeli “violations” of the rights of the Palestinians) is not dropped from the permanent agenda. And if Item Seven isn’t dropped, let’s hope that some of those countries will be brave enough to follow the American example and make good on their threat.

And if Harris wins? Then, I’m afraid, we will be back with the mixture as before. With the U.S. back on board since 2021 and not daring to utter a word of criticism, the UNHCR has had its damaged prestige restored. And Israel? Oh, Israel will be back in the dock of the kangaroo court at the UNHCR, being ripped to shreds by such determined defenders of human rights as China, Russia, Pakistan, Libya, and Venezuela.