US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley on Wednesday accused human rights groups of thwarting a US push for changes to the UN Human Rights Council and contributing to Washington’s decision to quit the body.
In a letter to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Haley said that they had played a “deconstructive” role by refusing to support US efforts to take Israel off the council’s agenda.
Haley on Tuesday announced that the US was quitting the council, condemning the “hypocrisy” of its members and its alleged “unrelenting bias” against Israel.
“You should know that your efforts to block negotiations and thwart reform were a contributing factor in the US decision to withdraw from the council,” Haley said in the letter. “You put yourself on the side of Russia and China, and opposite the United States on a key human rights issue.”
Haley was referring to a letter by 18 rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, to UN members last month expressing concern that a US draft resolution at the UN General Assembly could weaken the council.
The groups had said that the proposed changes could trigger “hostile amendments,” possibly from China and Russia, to undermine the work of the council.
“Such hostile proposals could enjoy broad support and the US might not be able to stop them,” Human Rights Watch UN director Louis Charbonneau said.
In the end, the US did not push ahead with its proposals at the assembly because of a lack of support from allies who said that changes could have unwanted consequences or might fail to win adoption.
Reforms are underway to improve the workings of the 47-nation council, but the US “walked away from” that effort and chose instead to “theatrically” quit the council, Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said.
“By attacking and blaming NGOs for its own failure, the [US President Donald] Trump administration is taking a page out of the book of some of the worst governments around the world,” Charbonneau said.
Haley had over the past year repeatedly threatened to quit the council unless there were reforms to its agenda and to the election of its members, which often run unopposed as a region’s candidate, regardless of their rights record.
The US last year urged African nations to back away from supporting the candidacy of the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the appeal fell on deaf ears.
NGOs had also raised concerns about giving the nation a seat at the council, citing the violence in Kasai, the murder of two UN experts who were investigating mass graves there and the arrests of scores of opposition demonstrators.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not