No seat for Russia on UN Human Rights Council

Vote indicates nations willing to isolate Moscow

Russia failed to regain a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council after a majority of countries in the General Assembly voted against it on Tuesday, a sign that support for international efforts to isolate Moscow for its war in Ukraine remains significant after nearly 20 months of fighting.

Russia lost the vote for the two council seats allocated to Eastern European countries to Albania and Bulgaria, both supporters of Ukraine. Still, Russia managed to secure 83 votes in its favor — just under half of the assembly — indicating its hopes the international community will move on from the war are not entirely unfounded.

The vote was the latest test of a Western-led campaign to diplomatically isolate Russia for its assault on Ukraine. Since the start of the full-scale invasion last year, nearly 150 countries have backed UN resolutions demanding that Russia unconditionally withdraw from Ukraine, and several dozen nations have imposed economic sanctions on Moscow.

But many countries have remained neutral, seeing the conflict as primarily a European and American problem, and the Russian economy has proved to be more resilient than expected, mitigating the impact of the sanctions. As the war drags on, concerns are mounting that support for Ukraine will wane, allowing Russia to potentially improve its military performance and gradually improve its place on the international stage.

Created in 2006, the Genevabased council is regarded as the world’s most important human rights body. While it has no criminal enforcement or sanctioning powers, the council can undertake investigations that help shape the global image of countries. It can also try to influence a country’s behavior if it is deemed to have poor rights records.

Russia had been active in council proceedings, challenging resolutions critical of allies such as Syria and Belarus, and proposing amendments aimed at undercutting a wide range of rights initiatives.

But last year, less than two months after it invaded Ukraine, Russia was suspended from the council in a UN General Assembly vote. It was only the second country to lose its membership on the council, after Libya.

The suspension came in response to Russia’s indiscriminate bombings in Ukraine and killing and torture of civilians by Russian forces in the suburbs of Kyiv. Since then, rights groups, including the council itself, have documented what they say are Russian war crimes in Ukraine, such as unlawful attacks on civilians and the systematic torture of prisoners.

But with the war approaching its 20th month, support for continued aid to Ukraine is waning in several countries.

Some African nations have complained that the West’s attention has been consumed by the war in Ukraine and argued that it should refocus on issues of interest to the developing continent, including food security and climate change. There are also concerns that the United States, Ukraine’s leading supplier of weapons in the war, could pull back from its support of Kyiv.