Exiting The Human Rights Council
A dummies guide to the council and Trump’s reasoning - the good and bad.
February 4th, 2025 - Trump pulls the US out of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Here is a potted guide to the US’s withdrawal, and an explanation of what the HRC is, it’s make-up and some of the inherent issues with the Council.
👉 Trumps prime motivation? It looks like it’s Netanyahu And Israel.
Trump signed an executive order Tuesday pulling the United States out of the United Nations Human Rights Council and cutting funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, known as UNRWA. The move coincides with a meeting in Washington between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It is perhaps no coincidence that Netanyahu is Trump’s best friend, he is also up against three separate cases of corruption filed in 2019: Case 1000, Case 2000, and Case 4000, which include allegations of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
Netanyahu is also an ICC indicted war criminal and has been given safe passage to meet with his fellow right wing convicted felon - Donald Trump on February 04, 2025.
The ICC alledge that Netanyahu and others, are responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024.
👉 Back to the HRC and Trump’s reasoning:
Trump argues that for decades, the administration has faulted the Human Rights Council for bias against Israel and cover-ups of various governments with human rights abuses.
In a fact sheet obtained by POLITICO, the White House said that the council “has not fulfilled its purpose and continues to be used as a protective body for countries committing horrific human rights violations.” The document also criticised the council’s position on Israel, pointing out that in 2018, it adopted more resolutions condemning Israel than Syria, Iran, and North Korea combined.
👉 UNRWA, UNESCO and USAID targeted by Trump too:
UNRWA, which was established to care for displaced Palestinians, has been under fire from the U.S. and Israel. The Biden administration had already frozen funding to UNRWA after reports that some of its staff members were implicated in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, welcomed the move, saying UNRWA is “a terrorist authority controlled by Hamas under the guise of a humanitarian agency.”
The executive order also requires Secretary of State Marco Rubio to conduct a review of international organisations, conventions, or treaties that “promote radical or anti-American sentiment,” which UNESCO is said to do particularly. In November 2019, the U.S. officially withdrew from UNESCO citing an anti-Israel bias.
The executive order also brings in questions regarding USAID, a body that works to advance human rights across borders. Questions abound on whether USAID aligns with the policy of “America First” from the president’s desk and on how the body is being funded.
👉 What is the UN Human Rights Council?
The Council was established by the United Nations General Assembly on 15 March 2006 to replace the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR, herein CHR). The Council works closely with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and engages the United Nations special procedures. The Council has been strongly criticised for including member countries that engage in human rights abuses.
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) does not have permanent members. Instead, the UNHRC is made up of 47 states that are elected to serve three-year terms. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. The headquarters of the Council are at the United Nations Office at Geneva in Switzerland.
👉 Current council members:
👉 In summary:
The UNHRC is the main UN body responsible for human rights. It was established in 2006 to promote and protect human rights around the world.
The UN General Assembly elects the UNHRC members through secret ballots.
The number of UNHRC members is based on equitable geographic distribution and the countries' contribution to human rights.
Members are limited to a maximum of two consecutive terms.
The UNHRC responds to human rights emergencies and makes recommendations on how to improve human rights.
The Council investigates allegations of breaches of human rights in United Nations member states and addresses thematic human rights issues like freedom of association and assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of belief and religion, women's rights, LGBT rights, and the rights of racial and ethnic minorities.
Trump’s order has drawn criticism from human rights organisations and some lawmakers who argue that, despite its flaws, the Human Rights Council plays a crucial role in addressing human rights abuses globally.
👉 United States’ recent revolving door of HRC membership:
The convicted felon-cum-US-President, DonaldTrump -originally pulled the US out of the HRC back in 2018.
After Trump lost to Biden, in 2021, the United States announced its intention to reengage immediately with the HRC as an active observer and to compete for a seat this fall after the Trump administration abandoned it in 2018.
Repeating himself again, Trump has pulled the US back out of the HRC on Feb 5th, 2025. This decision continues a long history of the U.S. on-and-off relationship with the U.N. Human Rights Council. While under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the U.S. was a participant in the council, under Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, it was not.
👉 Conflicting history of elected members with documented human rights abuses:
Why do certain states continue to get elected despite having human rights records so far from the standard that the UN General Assembly (UNGA) has set for itself, requiring Council members to uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights?
The Brookings institute offers a good explanation and answer to this question.
“The answer lies in part in understanding the dysfunctional way in which states are elected to the Council – through backroom deals, closed slates, and secret ballots. By design, the 47-member Council represents the general UN membership according to regional blocs: 13 seats each for Africa and Asia (including the Middle East), 8 for Latin America and the Caribbean, 7 for Western Europe and “other states” (USA, Canada, Israel), and 6 for the Eastern European group (including former Soviet Union states).
Each October, these blocs offer either a unified slate for HRC elections or a competitive slate. In theory, both options offer the possibility of denying a seat to an unqualified government, either by eliminating a poorly-performing candidate in a competitive slate scenario, or by preventing it from garnering a majority vote through abstentions in a clean slate situation. In practice, only the former has transpired: competitive slates have led to defeats for undeserving states on multiple occasions since the HRC was founded in 2006, including Russia in 2016, Iraq in 2019, and Saudi Arabia in 2020.
Membership rules also allow states on the Council, which are engaging in a pattern of gross and systemic abuses, to be removed by a two-thirds vote of the UN General Assembly, as has occurred once (Libya under Muammar Gaddafi).”
As the highest UN political body representing the interests of a diverse array of countries, the HRC is a highly competitive forum for shaping the international human rights regime. Who sits on the body, and what leverage they bring to bear on its deliberations, determine whether and what type of collective action is taken. Membership elections themselves, however, are not as competitive as they should be and result in seats for governments whose main aim is to block any meaningful action.
Member States with better scores on established human rights scales consistently make up a slight majority of the Council’s membership. When they work together, these states have moved the Council to make important and positive contributions to address human rights crises around the world. Unfortunately, however, some of these same countries are wedded to outdated doctrines of noninterventionism in their foreign policies (e.g., South Africa, India, Philippines), usually rooted in their aversion to international criticism of their many shortcomings.
👉 Iran and the HRC
In 2023 - Iran was “elected” to head up the Human Rights Council Assembly, and failed to condemn Hamas’s terror atrocities in Israel.
In May 2023, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk announced Iran would also chair its 2023 Social Forum, a two-day event for nations to “(share) knowledge, experience and best practices on science and technology.”
The appointment, closely following Iran’s quiet election to the U.N.’s Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in April, sparked immediate outrage. Executive Director of watchdog group United Nations Watch, Hillel Neuer, noted that — just two days before Türk’s announcement — Iran had executed two men for criticising Islam on social media.
U.N. representatives maintain Iran’s election occurred because its region, the Asian-Pacific, was next in the chairmanship’s regional rotation; the role is supposed to rotate between five regions equally, though some believe it favors Asia-Pacific.
U.S. Ambassador to the Human Rights Council Michèle Taylor felt the U.N.’s capitulations weren’t enough to justify Iran’s election, writing:
“(Regional rotation) should not take precedence of promoting respect for human rights and accountability. The appointment of a representative to a country with such a deplorable human rights record severely undermines the credibility and purpose of both the UN Human Rights Council and the Social Forum.”
Taylor references a third-party report the HRC had reviewed in March — two months before Iran’s election and state sponsored executions — accusing the country of “murder, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence and persecution.”
Initial criticism didn’t remove Iran’s election or seat on the Criminal Justice Commission, but the issue faced renewed scrutiny given the country’s financial and tactical backing of Hamas, the Gaza-based terror group which killed 1,400 Israelis in a multi-pronged, unprompted attack on October 7.
👉 Iran’s Tit for Tat:
In August 2023 - Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations and other international organisations in Geneva has said that the United States does not deserve membership in the Human Rights Council given its poor record on human rights.
👉 China should not be allowed on the HRC. Let’s explain why:
Many of these same states are also increasingly subject to the predations and persuasive pull of a rising China, which is growing more confident not only about defending its own domestic record but moving to offence on rewriting the norms and practices of UN scrutiny.
China is another questionable member of the council, given it’s track record of persistent human rights abuses being conducted. China has over one million ethnic Chinese Uyghurs imprisoned in concentration camps in 2025, and is holds an oppressive control over Tibet with widespread human rights abuses being committed on a daily basis.
China - as it has as a permanent member of the UN Security Council - is becoming more adept at flexing its muscle to undermine well-established norms and practices for monitoring and action, and bringing a widening circle of client states along with it.
Of course China is not the only oppressive dictatorship that should not be in the HRC, there are many such countries - but under the feckless leadership and pro-russian influence of the current Secretary General Antonia Gueterres, absolutely no action has been taken or indeed allowed, to remove nations who should not be sat on the HRC in 2025.
👉 References and sources:
https://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/60/251&Lang=E
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/un-human-rights-council-as-the-us-returns-it-will-have-to-deal-with-china-and-its-friends/
https://www.state.gov/u-s-decision-to-reengage-with-the-un-human-rights-council/
https://diyatvusa.com/trump-pulls-us-out-of-u-n-human-rights-council-cuts-funding-to-palestinian-relief-agency/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Council
https://press.un.org/en/2023/ecosoc7117.doc.htm
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-hangs-two-men-blasphemy-mizan-2023-05-08/
https://geneva.usmission.gov/2023/05/23/statement-by-ambassador-taylor-on-the-appointment-of-the-iranian-ambassador-as-chair-of-the-social-forum/
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For Iran to be elected in 2023 to lead the UNHRC speaks volumes. Enough said