US seeks to oust Russia from council
BUCHAREST, Romania – The United States plans to seek a suspension of Russia from its seat on the U.N.’s top human rights body amid increasing signs that Russian forces may have committed war crimes in Ukraine, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Monday.
Thomas-Greenfield made the call for Russia to be stripped of its seat in the Human Rights Council in the wake of reports over the weekend about violence against civilians in the town of Bucha, near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, after Russian forces pulled out. The reports have sparked a wave of outrage and condemnation against Russia.
“We believe that the members of the Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine, and we believe that Russia needs to be held accountable,” ThomasGreenfield said at a press conference in Romania’s capital, Bucharest.
The U.S. ambassador called Russia’s participation on the Human Rights Council a “farce” that “hurts the credibility of the council and the U.N. writ large” and is “simply wrong.”
The 193-member U.N. General Assembly in New York has final say, and any resolution to strip Russia of its membership rights would require support from two-thirds of member countries who vote.
Thomas-Greenfield said her message was simple to the 140 assembly members who voted last month to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: “The images out of Bucha and devastation across Ukraine require us now to match our words with action.”
“We cannot let a member state that is subverting every principle we hold dear to continue to sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council,” she said.
The 47-member-state council is the U.N.’s premier human rights body, and the General Assembly chooses its member states.
Russia and the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council – Britain, China, France, and the United States – all currently have seats on the rights council which the U.S. rejoined this year.
In New York, General Assembly spokeswoman Paulina Kubiak said on Monday that no request for a meeting on the issue has yet been received.
Russia’s ambassador in Geneva shot back by calling the U.S. statement “(b)aseless, unfounded and purely emotional bravado that looks good on camera – just how the US likes it.”
“Washington exploits the Ukrainian crisis for its own benefit in an attempt either to exclude or suspend Russia from international organizations, including the HRC here in Geneva,” Gennady Gatilov said.
The only country to have its membership rights stripped at the council was Libya in 2011, when upheaval in the North African country brought down longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi, said council spokesman Rolando Gomez. The council started work in 2006.
No permanent member of the security council has ever had its membership revoked from any U.N. body.
Ukrainian officials said the bodies of 410 civilians were found in Bucha and other towns around Kyiv that have been recaptured from Russian forces.