US withdraws from UN

Human Rights Council

The United States has withdrawn from the United Nations’ top human rights body accusing it of “chronic bias” against Israel, in a move that was criticised by human rights groups and described as regrettable by foreign leaders. The decision to pull out of the UN Human Rights Council was announced on Tuesday by Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN. “We take this step because our commitment does not allow us to remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organisation that makes a mockery of human rights,” she said alongside US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington, DC. Minutes later, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, called the announcement by US President Donald Trump’s administration “disappointing, if not really surprising”. “Given the state of human rights in today’s world, the US should be stepping up, not stepping back,” he added. The EU said the move “risks undermining the role of the US as a champion and supporter of democracy on the world stage”, while British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called it “regrettable”. On the other hand, Israel, a major ally of the US, praised Washington’s “courageous” move. The US’ announcement comes after the council voted last month to probe the killing of scores of Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip and accused Israel of excessive use of force. Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington, DC, said the US exit from the 47-member Geneva-based body” did not come as a shock”, as it was something that Haley had talked about almost from the moment that she became the US ambassador to the UN in early 2017. “She was quite adamant at the time that the council held a very deep anti-Israel bias and that the US was going to try to root it out; otherwise it would leave the council,” said Jordan. “But the primary reason why the US is pulling out of the council now is because of its efforts to reduce or eliminate of the unfair criticism, in the US’ view, of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians,” she added. “In the larger scheme of things, this really is a way of standing by its ally, Israel, but also using the opportunity to try to exert its own vision of human rights - even though a number of international human rights groups are roundly criticising the Trump administration for leaving the council.” In their remarks, both Haley an Pompeo said the decision had been made after a long year of efforts to shame the council into reform. Haley said the move “is not a retreat from human rights commitments” and accused the council of being “a protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias”. “Look at the council membership, and you see an appalling disrespect for the most basic rights,” she said Haley, citing Venezuela, China, Cuba and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Trump administration’s move also comes as it faces widespread criticism for detaining children separated from their immigrant parents at the US-Mexico border. On Monday, al-Hussein called on Washington to halt its child separation policy. “The thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable,” said the top UN human rights official. Washington’s withdrawal is the latest US rejection of multilateral engagement after it pulled out of the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Human Rights Program, said Trump’s “misguided policy of isolationism only harms American interests.” Twelve rights and aid groups, including Human Rights First, Save the Children and CARE, had earlier warned Pompeo the US withdrawal would “make it more difficult to advance human rights priorities and aid victims of abuse around the world.” In May, the council voted to send a team of international investigators to probe the deadly shootings of Palestinian demonstrators by Israeli snipers in the Gaza Strip during weeks-long rallies protests the Great March of Return along the fence with Israel. The US and Australia cast the only no votes at the time, while the Israeli ambassador in Geneva attacked the council for “spreading lies against Israel.” Speaking to Al Jazeera from New York, Louis Charbonneau, the UN director at Human Rights Watch, said “unfortunately the US is placing protecting Israel from criticism for its abuses over all else”. He added that despite some shortcoming, the Human Rights Council “has done some very good work, highlighting human rights abuses around the world, scrutinising and bringing facts to light which enable us to holding these countries to account. Charbonneau cited a commission of inquiry set up for wartorn Syria, saying that it “has been working for the last seven years uncovering ghastly abuses and reporting publicly on them”; the establishment of a fact-finding mission on Myanmar, “where we’ve seen ethnic cleansing on a scale that is mind-blogging”; as well as “looking at the problems in South Sudan, Burundi, Congo and North Korea”.