US to rejoin UN Human Rights Council following Trump withdrawal

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The United States is rejoining the controversial UN Human Rights Council (HRC) amid concerns that China has used America’s three-and-a-half year absence to grow its influence and power, AFP reports. Former President Trump withdrew the US from the Council in June 2018 to protest what UN Ambassador Nikki Haley described as the body’s “disproportionate focus and unending hostility toward Israel” which is “clear proof that the council is motivated by political bias, not by human rights.”

Made up of 47 countries elected by the UN General Assembly, the HRC is supposed to address worldwide human rights violations and make recommendations on how to prevent them. However, the council has included countries with dire human rights records and has constantly condemned Israel’s treatment of Palestinians while ignoring horrific abuses elsewhere.

In any event, diplomats have pointed out that the US is returning to a council that is increasingly dominated by China, a country whose government flagrantly violates human rights, and which is exerting a widening influence on the UN body. “The Chinese and all those who are fundamentally against human rights as Europeans understand them… oppose economic, social and cultural rights. It is not a new trend, but it is undeniably growing stronger,” a European diplomat told AFP.

“China’s objective is simple: to destroy the concept of the universality of human rights and to assert a vision consistent with its political system,” another diplomat added.

Still, other commentators see the Council becoming split into pro-US and pro-China camps, AFP reports. According to Universal Rights Group director Marc Limon, since the US reconnected with the council as an observer this year, it has “basically focused on just one thing, which is China.”

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