Trump Dropped UNHRC Because of Terrible Human Rights Records, Biden Rejoins Anyway
The UNHRC was discredited as a club of dictators
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Joe Biden brought the U.S. back into the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) despite knowing that countries with terrible human rights records, like Russia, were members, a reason why President Donald Trump left it.
The UNHRC was discredited as a club of dictators.
President George W. Bush chose not to join after the new UNHRC looked to be plagued by many of the same problems.
President Barack Obama sought to bring the U.S. into the UNHRC in 2009, eagerly reporting on America’s own supposed human rights abuses, like efforts by states like Arizona to enforce federal immigration laws on the border.
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Obama failed to reform the council, and it remained a forum for tyrannical regimes to sanitize their own human rights abuses while singling out Israel for condemnation when it attempted to defend itself from radical Islamic terrorism.
Trump pulled the U.S. out of the UNHRC, after warning it for years that its obsessive focus on condemning Israel, and its tolerance for human rights abuses by members such as Russia and China, had discredited the council completely.
In his 2017 address to the U.N. General Assembly, for example, Trump warned:
“[I]t is a massive source of embarrassment to the United Nations that some governments with egregious human rights records sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council.”
As Brietbart reported:
Trump eventually withdrew the U.S. from the UNHRC, concluding that it could not be reformed. Trump’s critics in the Democratic Party and the mainstream media complained, and Biden sought to rejoin as soon as he took office in 2021.
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The Biden State Department argued:
“[O]ur withdrawal in June 2018 did nothing to encourage meaningful change, but instead created a vacuum of U.S. leadership,” vowing to use “the full weight of our diplomatic leadership” to reform it.
Biden said in a statement at the time:
"I am grateful for the support of nations from around the world for our campaign, and I look forward to the United States once more being a constructive voice that works to help push the Human Rights Council to live up to its mandate and to protect the values we hold dear for all people."
Though Russia and China were members, Secretary of State Tony Blinken declared:
“The Council plays a meaningful role in protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms by documenting atrocities in order to hold wrongdoers accountable.”
The Biden administration now plans to urge member states to suspend Russia from the UNHRC over Ukraine — a request that Russia, with its dominant position on the U.N. Security Council, and its alliance with equally dominant China, will resist.
