US to depart UN Human Rights Council: reports
June 19, 2018
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley will tell the organization on Tuesday evening at a joint press conference in Washington that their nation plans to leave its main human rights body, UN officials have confirmed.
The announcement would come just one day after the UNHRC condemned the Trump administration for its policy of separating children from the families at the US-Mexico border.
Haley had already threatened the exit, citing concerns that the council is biased against Israel. She said that the UNHRC was a "forum for politics, hypocrisy and evasion," that included major human rights violators such as Venezuela, Cuba, China, Burundi and Saudi Arabia.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the organization would not comment until after the formal announcement: "We will wait to hear the details of that decision before commenting fully. What is clear, is that the secretary-general is a strong believer in the human rights architecture of the UN and the active participation of all member states in that architecture."
Protecting Israel takes precedence: HRW
Human Rights Watch slammed the move, with executive director Kenneth Roth bemoaning the vacuum the lack of US leadership will leave: "The Trump administration's withdrawal is a sad reflection of its one-dimensional human rights policy: defending Israeli abuses from criticism takes precedence above all else."
The Trump administration has already pulled the US out of a number of major international organizations and deals, including the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal, as well as the UN's educational and cultural organizations.
es/aw (AFP, AP, Reuters)