US pulls out of UN human rights body
The United States has pulled out of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which it has accused of anti-israel bias. The move, announced late last night, is the latest US rejection of multilateral engagement after it pulled out of the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, and Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, declared the decision, with Mrs Haley saying the Geneva-based organisation was “not worthy of its name”.
THE United States has pulled out of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which it has accused of anti-israel bias.
The move, announced late last night, is the latest US rejection of multilateral engagement after it pulled out of the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal.
Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, and Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, declared the decision, with Mrs Haley saying the Geneva-based organisation was “not worthy of its name”.
She said the US would have stayed if the changes they sought had been implemented, and said she did not rule out rejoining at a later date.
Mrs Haley announced last year that Washington was reviewing its membership of the 47-country body. It is the first time a sitting member has volunteered to step aside.
Last night Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, thanked President Trump, Mr Pompeo and Mrs Haley for their decision, saying: “For years the Council has proved itself to be a biased, hostile and anti-israeli body that is betraying its mission to protect human rights.”
However Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, said the US decision was “regrettable”.
Washington joined the Genevabased forum after Barack Obama became president in 2009.
The council has passed more than 70 resolutions critical of Israel, 10 times as often as it has criticised Iran.
The US move came as Donald Trump achieved his highest approval rating since the first week of his presidency. For the first time since January 2017 he recorded an approval figure of 45 per cent in a weekly Gallup poll. The poll reflected a strengthening economy, falling unemployment, and the summit with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, in Singapore.
It was unclear how much it had been affected by a furore over a new “zero tolerance” policy of detaining and prosecuting illegal immigrant parents, and holding their children in separate detention centres.
A separate Quinnipiac poll showed 66 per cent of Americans opposed the policy, although 55 per cent of Republicans supported it.
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN human rights chief, has criticised the policy, calling it “unconscionable”.
In the past, illegal immigrant families were “caught and released” while they awaited proceedings. However, over a six-week period more than 2,000 children have been separated from their parents, and photographs have emerged of minors being held in wire mesh cages. In a secretly recorded tape of Central American children at a detention centre in Texas, they could be heard crying and pleading for their parents as a guard joked “We have an orchestra here”.
There was condemnation from all four living US former first ladies, and a host of senior Republicans including Senator John Mccain. Ted Cruz, the conservative Republican senator from Texas, said he was “horrified”.
Mr Trump was last night meeting with Republicans in Congress to discuss potential immigration bills.
Before the meeting, the president said: “We want to solve this problem. I don’t want children taken away from their parents. When you prosecute the parents for coming in illegally, which should happen, you have to take the children away.”
He said there were only two choices, which were “totally open borders or criminal prosecution”.
Mr Trump said he was asking Congress for a “third option”.