US Withdraws from United Nations Human Rights Council
After repetitive threats to do so, the Trump administration announced its secession from the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, June 19th.
The decision was announced by US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, amid turbulent debate over the administration’s new immigration policy, which separates families who cross the border illegally to seek asylum. Haley justified the action by claiming that the US could not be a constituent of a UN body that is a “protector of human rights abusers, and a cesspool of political bias.”
She elaborated, “Look at the council membership and you see an appalling disrespect for human rights,” then accused member-countries such as China, Venezuela, Russia, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Egypt. Previous warnings of withdrawal from the UNHRC were primarily linked to the Israeli conflict, and the Ambassador was sure not to omit this point, speaking extensively about the council’s “chronic anti-Israel bias” and adding that they are “not worthy of [Israel’s] name.”
US exit from this “hypocritical and self-serving” assembly was not only expected but fully precedented by the Trump administration’s resistance to international agreements and committees like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Agreement, and the Iran nuclear deal–all of which the President has backed out of since taking office.
Perhaps the most important question now is this: Does the true hypocrisy, in fact, lie in the nationalist, self-serving nature of the admin’s rescission from these endeavors?
