U.S. threatens split from U.N. human rights body
UNITED NATIONS — The Trump administration warned Tuesday that the United States could pull out of the U.N. Human Rights Council unless the body ends what Washington calls the whitewashing of dictators’ abuses and unfair attacks on Israel. President Donald Trump’s U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, delivered the ultimatum in an unusual address in Geneva to the 47-member body.
“The United States is looking very carefully at this council and our participation in it,” Haley told council members.
“Being a member of this council is a privilege, and no country who is a human rights violator should be allowed a seat at the table.”
The United States accuses the council of shielding the repressive regimes it should be condemning, allowing such regimes to join the body and then use it to thwart scrutiny.
Haley pointed to what she said are egregious human rights violations in Venezuela, a council member, and said if the country cannot reform it should step down from the rights council.
Haley outlined proposals for reform in a separate address later Tuesday, delivered away from the council headquarters. She again accused Venezuela of masking starvation and repression at home with membership in the human rights body.
“Countries like Venezuela, Cuba, China, Burundi and Saudi Arabia occupy positions that obligate them to, in the words of the resolution that created the Human Rights Council, ‘uphold the highest standards’ of human rights,” Haley said in remarks at the Graduate Institute Geneva.
The council must also stop singling out Israel for criticism, Haley said.
“It’s hard to accept that this council has never considered a resolution on Venezuela, and yet it adopted five biased resolutions in March against a single country, Israel,” Haley said in her remarks before the council. “It is essential that this council address its chronic anti-Israel bias if it is to have any credibility.”
Haley is the first U.S. United Nations ambassador to address the council, and her address is part of a Trump administration campaign to demand reform to what Haley has called hidebound and biased U.N. bureaucracies.