The Trump administration has made the United States the first country to entirely refuse its scheduled human rights record examination by the UN Human Rights Council. The US, which withdrew from the council last year citing anti-American and anti-Israel bias, is criticized for undermining the body's credibility and potentially encouraging other nations to disregard human rights scrutiny.
The United States is expected to become the first country on Tuesday to refuse, in full, a scheduled examination of its human rights record by the U.N.'s top rights body since that body was created two decades ago. The Geneva-based council examines the rights records of all 193 U.N. member states, generally about every four to five years, through a process known as the universal periodic review. Under Donald Trump, the United States already skipped its review appointment a year ago. The scheduled November 2025 review was pushed back until Tuesday in hopes that the U.S. government might change its mind. The Trump administration pulled the U.S. out of the Human Rights Council last year, accusing it of an anti-U.S. and anti-Israel bias, and alleging that it didn't uphold the very values it promotes. “(W)e give no credibility to the agency,” a State Department spokesperson said in an email to The Associated Press. “This irredeemable body makes a mockery of human rights through consistent failures to uphold its own ‘values’ as it pushes anti-American rhetoric,” the spokesperson said, alleging the council's “persistent failure to condemn the most egregious human rights violators.” The council says the process requires participation from the country in question, and that if no national representatives are present, the review cannot go forward. As part of such reviews, national delegations, which at times can include a dozen officials or more, make a presentation, face questions and hear recommendations from other national envoys. It's supposed to be a sweeping and constructive process, akin to holding up a mirror to governments to improve their human rights policies. Supporters back the council's mandate to keep tabs on human rights in all U.N. member states, including the U.S., which has drawn criticism for its policies, including strong-arm deportations and targeted killings of alleged drug-runners in the Caribbean and Pacific – which the administration has said are designed to protect U.S. workers and help keep the country safe. Critics of the U.S. snub warn that the walkout could encourage other countries, many of which bristle about intense scrutiny from human rights monitors, to follow suit. Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's human rights program, said: “The administration is saying to the world, ‘we don’t care about whether you would review us or not, we’re going to continue to violate human rights unabashed’. "And we are saying: ‘No, enough is enough. This council should hold the United States accountable,” he told reporters Monday in Geneva, as part of a push by civil society to raise awareness about the U.S. rights record. He said the ACLU and allies have called on the U.N. human rights chief to respond by presenting an update on rights in the United States early next year. Eric Tistounet, a visiting professor at the Geneva Graduate Institute who was the council's first secretary, said the U.S. walkout could affect the credibility of the council's review system. “If the predominant global power — which has always claimed to adhere to the human rights norms — doesn’t show up and doesn’t even justify why, then you are in big trouble," he said.
