US won’t participate in UN rights council without reforms

‘Rights body unduly focuses on Israel’

NEW YORK: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says the US will not continue participating in the Human Rights Council unless the UN rights agency undergoes “considerable reform.”

He gave no time frame for reforms to take place, saying in a letter to eight nongovernmental organizations obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press (AP) that the US will continue to participate in the council’s current session in Geneva.

The eight organizations, which focus on human rights and support for the UN, wrote to Tillerson asking the US to maintain its engagement with the rights council. He urged them to encourage reforms in the council, saying that “would be most helpful.”

The secretary of state’s letter was first reported by Foreign Policy magazine.

The US has long complained that the Geneva-based Human Rights Council unduly focuses on Israel and includes member countries with poor records.

The UN and human rights groups said it would be a mistake for the US to leave the council.

“The US is an integral part of the Human Rights Council,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Wednesday. “It’s important that every country participate in its work.”

Felice Gaer, director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, a signatory, told the Associated Press: “Secretary Tillerson should appreciate that walking away will not ‘delegitimize’ the council’s bad decisions; rather, it will give the foxes free reign in the henhouse as America retreats from the fight to defend our values on the world stage.”

And Kenneth Roth, the head of Human Rights Watch which did not sign the letter, told AP: “If the Trump administration is rights genuinely committed to human rights rather than just making a political statement on behalf of Israel, it would have the courage to stay and fight rather than flee in a cowardly retreat.”

Responding to questions about US intentions, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Wednesday: “I’m not predicting we’re going to walk away from the council.” But he acknowledged the US would be working “to urge greater accountability and greater transparency.”

In a Feb. 9 letter to Tillerson, the eight organizations said that since the US began participating in the rights body in 2009 “it has been instrumental in making the council a more effective body.”

They pointed to the council’s shift from disproportionate attention to Israel and inadequate attention to some of the worst human rights violations and violators to its “spotlight on rogue regimes and terrorists” and its commissioning of inde-