In light of the United States’ recent decision to pull out of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Hillel Neuer, the executive director of U.N. Watch, has shown how the UNHRC has failed to live up to even its own standards.
When the UNHRC formed out of the ashes of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 2006, the UNHRC set forth some goals for itself, including “the promotion and protection of human rights” and nixing the agenda item that singled out Israel:
A document UN has tried to bury: their 2006 pledge of how new UNHRC would mark a total reform:
• new membership criteria based on rights record
• members will "uphold highest standards"
• anti-Israeli agenda item to be removed, replaced by "clean slate"https://t.co/4ZDXuYtfjL pic.twitter.com/4clUjfnJib— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) June 22, 2018
Needless to say, the council has not lived up to these pledges, as Israel is still routinely targeted on a weekly basis under Agenda Item 7. And as U.N. Watch has reported, both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola were recently elected to the council, even though both countries are plagued by human rights violations.
When Haley announced the United States’ exit from the council, she cited the fact the lack of reforms and the council’s inability to live up to its name as reasons for doing so. She added that the U.S. would work with NGOs that actually do protect human rights from here on out.
