Pompeo, Haley Announces United States Leaving UN Human Rights Council
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced on Tuesday that U.S. would leave the UN Human Rights Council.
Citing the organization as being broken and filled with hypocrisy, Pompeo and Haley mentioned how they tried to work with other council members in order to reform the body, however, they were met with resistance.
"The Trump administration is committed to protecting and promoting the God-given dignity and freedom of every human being. Every individual has rights that are inherent and enviable," Pompeo said. "They are given by God and not by government. Because of that, no government must take them away."
"For decades, the United States has led global efforts to promote human rights, often through multilateral institutions. While we have seen improvements in certain human rights situations, for far too long we have waited while that progress comes too slowly or in some cases, never comes," Pompeo said. "Too many commitments have gone unfulfilled. President Trump wants to move the ball forward. From Day One he has called out institutions or countries who say one thing and do another, and that's precisely the problem at the Human Rights Council. As President Trump said at the UN General Assembly, it is a massive source of embarrassment to the United Nations that some governments with egregious human rights records sit on the Human Rights Council."
Pompeo mentioned the organization's bias against Israel as being an example of the council's misplaced priorities.
"Today we need to be honest. The Human Rights Council is a poor defender of human rights. Worse than that, the Human Rights Council has become an exercise in shameless hypocrisy with many of the world's worst human rights abuses going ignored and some of the world's most serious offenders sitting on the Council itself," Pompeo said. "The only thing worse than a council that does almost nothing to protect human rights is a council that covers for human rights abuses and is therefore an obstacle to progress and an impediment to change. The Human Rights Council enables abuses by absolving wrongdoers through silence and falsely condemning those who have committed no offense."
Israel welcomes ‘courageous’ US pullout from UN Human Rights Council
Israel on Tuesday night welcomed an announcement that the United States will withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council, praising the move as a “courageous decision against the hypocrisy and the lies” of the international body that UN ambassador Nikki Haley said harbors bias against the Jewish state.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the US move, branding the council “a biased, hostile, anti-Israel organization that has betrayed its mission of protecting human rights.”
“For years, the UNHRC has proven to be a biased, hostile, anti-Israel organization that has betrayed its mission of protecting human rights. Instead of dealing with regimes that systematically violate human rights, the UNHRC obsessively focuses on Israel, the one genuine democracy in the Middle East,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office also read. “The US decision to leave this prejudiced body is an unequivocal statement that enough is enough.”
The PMO said that “Israel thanks President Trump, Secretary Pompeo and Ambassador Haley for their courageous decision against the hypocrisy and the lies of the so-called UN Human Rights Council.”
The statement followed Haley’s announcement that the US will leave the UNHRC, condemning the “hypocrisy” of its members and its alleged “unrelenting bias” against Israel.
Haley announced the decision alongside President Donald Trump’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Both insisted the United States would remain a leading champion of human rights.
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