A small group of countries led by China and Russia has repeatedly tried to block funding for human rights-related work at the UN over a five-year period, a report by the nonprofit International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) said.
The report cited proposals for major cuts to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and for the elimination of funding for some UN investigations, in what it called a weaponization of the budget process.
While those attempts, made in closed-door UN meetings, did not succeed, the authors voiced concern about as the UN is facing a financial crisis and as US President Donald Trump’s administration steps back from multilateralism.
Photo: Reuters
“The proposals that China and Russia have put forth are clearly about crippling OHCHR,” said Angeli Datt, one of the authors of the 97-page report titled “Budget Battles at the UN.”
China’s mission to the UN in New York said the report was “groundless.”
“In recent years, thanks to the concerted efforts of all parties, budgetary resources for human rights have continued to grow,” the mission said in a statement.
There was no immediate comment from the Russian mission.
ISHR program manager for China and Latin America Raphael Viana David said the proposals set a dangerous precedent and highlighted a trend for “putting noninterference in national affairs over human rights.”
The US, formerly one of the most active members of the UN Human Rights Council, has disengaged under Trump, alleging an anti-Israel bias.
That would “create space for China and Russia to expand their influence within budgetary processes at a time of critical structural UN reform,” the report said.
One of the proposals brought jointly by China and Russia in 2021 sought to block all resources to 17 projects set up by the rights council, a summary of the motion included in the report showed.
Another, from last year, backed by China, Russia and others sought to block all resources for investigations on Iran, North Korea, Ukraine, Belarus, Eritrea, Sudan and Venezuela.
The report was based on interviews with dozens of diplomats, experts and UN officials, as well as a review of public and private UN documents from 2019 to last year.
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