The U.N. has announced its new Human Rights Council membership — and it stinks

Andres Oppenheimer

The recent vote that turned down Saudi Arabia’s bid for a seat at the United Nations’ top human rights body was applauded by many as a big triumph for the human rights cause. But, sadly, the U.N.’s main human rights group has long been, and will continue to be, a joke.

The 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council, whose latest members were elected by the 193-member General Assembly on Oct. 9, will continue to have among its most active member countries dictatorships such as Cuba, China and Sudan.

About 60% of the Council’s member countries are either full-blown dictatorships, like Cuba and China, or non-democratic states, human rights advocates say.

Incredibly, these Council members were elected through a secret vote by all U.N. member countries under guidelines that require Council members to “uphold the highest standards of promotion and protection of human rights.” Yes, you read right: Cuba, China and Sudan, among many other systematic rights abusers, were elected under these criteria.

The Council meets regularly to review the human rights record of all countries and appoints independent investigators to look into possible abuses.

Among the 18 countries that were elected or reelected by the General Assembly for the Council’s 2025-2027 period is Qatar, which commits serious human rights violations and reportedly provides financial aid to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations. Qatar has justified its aid to Hamas saying they were necessary to support Palestinian families in need.

Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia were also elected for the upcoming Council period despite being ”unqualified” to serve on the panel, according to a joint statement by the U.N. Watch, the Human Rights Foundation and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

Mexico and Colombia, which were also elected for the Council’s new period, were described by the three human rights groups’ joint statement as “questionable” choices, in part because of their dubious U.N. voting records.

Asked why so many autocratic states are elected, U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer told me that “the truth is that the worst regimes seek election more than anybody else.”

He added, “If you are Costa Rica, or another country that is not a serious human rights offender, you are not as motivated to seek a seat at the Council as dictatorships that seek to shield their gross abuses, and to use the seats for propaganda.”

As a result, dictatorships often offer democratic countries their votes for economic and trade committees in exchange for support for their bids to get a seat at the Human Rights Council.

The United States, whose term as Council member ends this year, did not run for reelection. It’s not clear whether it didn’t want to continue being a member because it gave up hopes of being able to reform it from within, or to avoid being the target of daily accusations for its support for Israel.

The U.N. Council is well known for its anti-Israel bias. Between its creation in 2006 and mid-2023, the Council issued 103 resolutions against Israel, compared with 16 against North Korea, 14 against Iran, three against Venezuela and none against China, Cuba or Saudi Arabia, according to U.N. Watch.

Summing up, the top U.N. human rights body is a mutual protection society where the world’s most brutal dictatorships help one another reject human rights accusations, and vote to punish their enemies.

It should be disbanded just as its predecessor, the U.N. Human Rights Commission, was in 2006. At the time, democratic countries at the U.N. General Assembly concluded that it was too corrupt and dishonest to continue existing, and that it should be replaced by a new human rights body.

But the U.N. Human Rights Council that was created in its place has been — again — hijacked by criminal regimes. It should be closed down, because it makes a mockery of the cause of human rights.