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US may withdraw from UNHRC over Israel bias
Several US officials say the country is seriously contemplating withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) unless reforms are made over its bias towards Israel.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said last week that a decision to either stay or leave would be made after the Council’s three-week session in Geneva ends this month. Haley, writing in the Washington Post at the weekend, called for the UNHRC to “end its practice of wrongly singling out Israel for criticism”.
Haley added that when a UN 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”.
In March US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wrote to several organisations, who were lobbying for the US to remain in the UNHRC that the US would continue to evaluate the effectiveness of the body and its fixation Israel, who’s actions over the Palestinian territories is a permanent item on the agenda of the 47-member body set up in 2006. The US joined the UNHRC in 2009 under the Obama administration.
The UK has also expressed its grievances with the UNHRC. Also in March this year the UK Mission to the UN realised a statement which argued that the “persistence of bias, particularly the disproportionate volume of resolutions against Israel, undermines the Council’s credibility as the globally focused and objective international human rights body we all want and need”.
It added: “Israel is the only country permanently on the Human Rights Council’s agenda. Indeed, when the Council voted to include Israel as a permanent item in 2007 – the so-called agenda Item 7 – it was [then UN Secretary General] Ban Ki Moon who expressed his deep disappointment given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world.”
The UNHRC has issued a total of 135 resolutions against specific countries in its history, of which 68 have targeted Israel, including five out of 10 in the latest session.
The US joined the UNHRC in 2009 under the Obama administration, after the Bush administration refused to join the body when it formed in 2006.