The United States will withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Geneva announced Tuesday.
“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 added.
Haley cited the continued effort by the Human Rights Council to discredit Israel, saying the organization came up with more resolutions to condemn Israel than North Korea, Syria and Iran combined.
Haley announced in 2017 that a U.S. Senate subcommittee met to consider whether the U.S. should remain a part of the council in an op-ed for the Washington Post, and has since called for an end to the organization’s “chronic anti-Israel bias.”
Haley said then that if she did not see reform in the organization, the U.S. would withdraw.
The Human Rights Council has become “a cesspool of political bias” Haley commented, before saying her calls reform were not heeded, and therefore the U.S. was forced to withdraw.
The exit does not come as a surprise, as U.S. sources told Reuters last Thursday that the exit was “imminent.” (RELATED: Report: US Expected To Leave UN Human Rights Council)
Haley has been a staunch defender of Israel during her time as ambassador, and has oftentimes stood alone or with very few on many U.N. votes and resolutions on Israel’s behalf.
The Council voted to condemn Israel on June 13 for excessive force against Palestinians protesting on the Gaza Strip, but the General Assembly’s text failed to mention Hamas.
“The nature of this resolution clearly demonstrates that politics is driving the day. It is totally one-sided. It makes not one mention of the Hamas terrorists who routinely initiate the violence in Gaza,” Haley told the Council.
Haley defied the U.N. in favor of Israel in 2017 when the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. More than 120 countries voted in favor of a U.N. resolution calling on the U.S. to drop the recognition. (RELATED: Nikki Haley Shoots Down UN Resolution Condemning Trump’s Jerusalem Decision)
“The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation,” Haley said to the U.N. General Assembly.
The U.S. was one of four countries to vote against the creation of the Human Rights Council in 2006, which was intended to replace the controversial Human Rights Commission that extended membership to major human rights offenders such as Cuba, Iran and China.
Haley previously said she shares a similar view on the U.N. as John Bolton, the former envoy to the U.N. for George W. Bush and current national security advisor.
“I know John Bolton well. I have gotten advice from him, I have talked to him. I know his disdain for the U.N. I share it,” Haley said at Duke University in April.
The 47-member Council based in Geneva is in the middle of its 38th three week session, ending July 6.
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