US withdraws from UNHRC, says it protects human right abusers

Posted on June 20, 2018

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has on Tuesday announced that the United States is withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council. She accused the body of bias against US ally Israel and a failure to hold human rights abusers accountable.

This decision is coming after the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights slammed the US for the separation of children from their parents at the US-Mexico border.

Speaking about the withdraw from UNHRC, Nikki Haley defended the decision.

“Human rights abusers continue to serve on, and be elected to, the council,” said Haley, listing US grievances with the body. “The world’s most inhumane regimes continue to escape its scrutiny, and the council continues politicizing scapegoating of countries with positive human rights records in an attempt to distract from the abusers in its ranks.”

“For too long,” Haley said, “the Human Rights Council has been a protector of human rights abusers, and a cesspool of political bias.”

Reacting to the US withdrawal from UNHRC, Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Donald Trump and his administration for pulling away from a body which turns a blind eye to regimes that violate human rights but focuses on Israel.

In a series of tweets, he said:

”Israel thanks President Trump, Secretary Pompeo and Ambassador Haley for their courageous decision against the hypocrisy and the lies of the so-called UN Human Rights Council.

For years, the UNHRC has proven to be a biased, hostile, anti-Israel organization that has betrayed its mission of protecting human rights.

Instead of dealing with regimes that systematically violate human rights, the UNHRC obsessively focuses on Israel, the one genuine democracy in the Middle East.

The US decision to leave this prejudiced body is an unequivocal statement that enough is enough. Israel welcomes the American announcement.”