Geneva, Switzerland – The withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Council is unlikely in itself to have much impact on the Council, or human rights in the world, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said today.
The real issue is the Trump administration’s broader rejection of multilateralism and rule of law (international or otherwise), and how it acts in practice, both at home and abroad, the Geneva-based organization adds.
The inhuman caging of thousands of migrant and refugee children, and turning a blind eye to the grave human rights violations in North Korea, are but two recent and glaring examples, along with a recent highly critical report by the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, following his visit to the US last year.
The feigned drama and grand gesture of announcing its withdrawal from the Council is in fact a side-show, the ICJ says.
What is more worrying is the serious rise of neo-fascism and openly racist and nationalist authoritarianism across Europe (and simultaneously elsewhere), including that explicitly or implicitly rejects universal human rights.
These movements, even where they are not immediately succeeding in coming to power, are slowly paralyzing Europe at exactly the time its moderating or progressive influence on world affairs in general, and human rights in particular, is most needed, the ICJ adds.
The sustained attacks in the UN General Assembly in New York on the funding and mandate for the day-to-day human rights work of the UN – whether through the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Secretary General’s Rights up Front Initiative, or UN country offices, are in fact likely to do deeper and longer lasting damage than US withdrawal from the Council.
The US in fact is cooperating in New York with the very same countries it condemns in its statement withdrawing from the Council, to undermine the actual capacity of the UN to fight for human rights.
And many many other countries are complicit in that exercise by their silence.
All this, combined with rise of authoritarian regimes in other regions and a long-term failure of States, the United Nations, and even civil society, to truly entrench human rights in public opinion and consciousness, means that the UN human rights system is indeed facing existential threats, but the US quitting the Human Rights Council is probably the least of our worries, the ICJ statement concludes.
Contacts:
Sam Zarifi, ICJ Secretary General, t: +41 79 726 44 15
Matt Pollard, ICJ UN Representaive, t: +41 79 246 54 75
