WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has decided not to seek a second consecutive term on the much-maligned U.N. Human Rights Council, the State Department said Monday.
The administration had made U.S. membership in the Geneva-based council a priority when it took office in 2021 after former President Donald Trump withdrew from the body, citing anti-Israel bias. Since returning to the council, the government has regularly criticized its votes on the Middle East and other issues.
“We have decided not to seek another term on the Human Rights Council at this time as we engage with our allies on the best way forward,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
The elections for the 47-member council are held by the UN General Assembly, with candidate countries drawn from different geographical groups. The three other candidates — Iceland, Spain and Switzerland — from the U.S. geographic group known as Western Hemisphere and Others, or WEOG, could represent American interests and values, Miller said.
“They are all countries with a very strong record of support for human rights,” he said. “We thought they would carry the flag forward, but we will continue to deal with human rights issues.”
The council was established in 2006 to replace a human rights commission that had been discredited over its poor record on the rights of some members. But the new council soon faced similar criticism, including that human rights abusers sought seats to protect themselves and their allies. The US has criticized the selection of candidates with poor rights records on uncontested lists.
The US has been Israel’s most outspoken defender, repeatedly joining it in denouncing alleged anti-Israel bias within the UN rights body. Spain, meanwhile, was one of three European countries to announce they would recognize a Palestinian state – a move that Israel criticized.
What the US saw as the Council’s excessive criticism of Israel culminated in the Trump administration’s withdrawal in June 2018.
In announcing that the Biden administration would reverse Trump’s decision, Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized the withdrawal, saying it “did nothing to encourage meaningful change but instead created a vacuum of American leadership, from which countries with authoritarian agendas to their advantage have taken advantage.”
