The U.S. announced its withdrawal from the U.N. Human Rights Council this afternoon. The announcement was made by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley from State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C.
“We have no doubt that there was once a noble vision for this council. But today, we need to be honest – the Human Rights Council is a poor defender of human rights,” Pompeo said.
“Worse than that, the Human Rights Council has become an exercise in shameless hypocrisy – with many of the world’s worst human rights abuses going ignored, and some of the world’s most serious offenders sitting on the council itself.”
“Its membership includes authoritarian governments with unambiguous and abhorrent human rights records, such as China, Cuba, and Venezuela.”
Ambassador Haley was even more critical.
“For too long, the Human Rights Council has been a protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias,” she said. “Therefore, as we said we would do a year ago if we did not see any progress, the United States is officially withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council.”
“In doing so, I want to make it crystal clear that this step is not a retreat from human rights commitments; on the contrary, we take this step because our commitment does not allow us to remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organization that makes a mockery of human rights,” she added.
The U.S. has had a rocky relationship with Council with the body criticizing the United States for many of its policies in recent months.
Two weeks ago the U.N. Office of Human Rights, the Council’s governing body, harshly criticized the U.S. for its policy of separating young immigrant children from their parents at the U.S. southern border. Spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Ravina Shamdasani called the policy a human rights violation.
“We are deeply concerned that the zero tolerance policy recently put in place along the US southern border has led to people caught entering the country irregularly being subjected to criminal prosecution and having their children – including extremely young children -taken away from them as a result,” Shamdasani wrote.
“Children should never be detained for reasons related to their own or their parents’ migration status. Detention is never in the best interests of the child and always constitutes a child rights violation,” she added.
Earlier that week, the U.N. Human Rights Office criticized the U.S. for its poverty which they said seemed to be driven by “contempt and…hatred” for the poor.
“For one of the world’s wealthiest countries to have 40 million people living in poverty and over five million living in ‘Third World’ conditions is cruel and inhuman,” a report issued by U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, read.
The Human Rights Council is made up for 47 member countries and has as its stated the goal the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe.
Haley reiterated that despite the U.S.’ withdrawal, America will continue to advocate for human rights at the U.N. as well as reforms on the Council itself.
“America has a proud legacy as a champion of human rights, a proud legacy as the world’s largest provider of humanitarian aid, and a proud legacy of liberating oppressed people and defeating tyranny throughout the world. While we do not seek to impose the American system on anyone else, we do support the rights of all people to have freedoms bestowed on them by their creator. That is why we are withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council, an organization that is not worthy of its name,” she said.
Photo by U.S. Department of State