The US might withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council
The US is expected to announce intentions to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council this week.
It is believed that it may withdraw due to “anti-Israel bias”, according to Reuters.
John Fisher, the head of the Human Rights Watch, has said that they expect the US Ambassador will call for reforms.
“Our understanding is that it is going to be a message of engagement and reform,” Fisher said.
Nikki Haley, who is the US Ambassador to the UN will visit Geneva later this week for sessions with the council.
Intentions to call for reform were revealed by Haley in an op-ed for The Washington Post.
She wrote that she planned to outline “necessary” changes and “end the practice of wrongly singling out Israel for criticism”.
“When the council passes more than 70 resolutions against Israel, a country with a strong human rights record, and just seven resolutions against Iran, a country with an abysmal human rights record, you know something is seriously wrong,” Haley wrote.
The UN Human Rights Council works to address situations of issues against LGBT communities, as well as racial and ethnic minorities, women’s rights and much more.
The Council passed a landmark resolution which condemned violence and discrimination against LGBT people in 2014.
The motions welcome “positive developments at the international, regional and national levels in the fight against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”
Only some members of the UN have a seat on the council, which is responsible for reviewing countries human rights records.
Most recently, the council reviewed South Sudan and asked the country to decriminalise homosexuality and to stop using child soldiers.
Following the review, the country promised to reevaluate the use of child soldiers on the condition that it was still allowed to kill gay people.
Elizabeth Deng, a researcher for Amnesty International, said that she did not expect the UN report to “have much impact on the government’s policies”.
