Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley are expected to announce the withdrawal of the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday afternoon, according to various reports.
The decision was reportedly based on the Council’s bias against Israel and its extension of membership to notorious human rights abusers.
The U.N. Human Rights Council was established in 2006 as a successor to the Human Rights Commission, which was criticized for politicized abuse and the unrepentantly oppressive practices of many member states, exactly as the Trump administration is criticizing the Human Rights Council today.
The Bush administration resisted joining the HRC precisely because there were doubts it would be a great improvement over its embarrassing predecessor organization, but the Obama administration decided to join in order to “make it a more effective body to promote and protect human rights,” as then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice said in 2009.
Bloomberg News notes the HRC began its latest session on Monday by discussing the U.S. media’s new obsession, the “policy of separating children from parents crossing the southern border illegally,” which High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein called “unconscionable.” READ MORE
