US tells UN it will snub regular rights review

The United States told the United Nations in a letter on Thursday that it will not take part in an upcoming regular review of its record on human rights.

“I write to inform you that United States of America will not participate in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) … scheduled to take place in Geneva on November 7,” the US mission in Geneva said in a letter addressed to UN rights chief Volker Turk, seen by AFP.

The standard review is an examination that all 193 UN member states must undergo in turn every four to five years to assess their human rights record.

The US decision to snub its review was linked to President Donald Trump’s order back in February withdrawing Washington from a number of UN bodies, including participation in the Human Rights Council (HRC).

“As with other HRC mechanisms, engagement in UPRs implies endorsement of the council’s mandate and activities and ignores its persistent failure to condemn the most egregious human rights violators,” a US State Department official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

Thursday’s letter said that the UPR system, which was created after the establishment of the rights council in 2006, was meant to be “based on objective and reliable information and conducted in a manner that ensures equal treatment” of all countries.

“However, this is not the case today,” it charged, adding that “the United States objects to the politicisation of human rights across the UN system, as well as the UN’s unrelenting selective bias against Israel”.

It also accused the UN of “ignoring human rights abuses in China, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela”, which it said had “tarnished the UPR process” and other rights council mechanisms.

Rights council spokesman Pascal Sim told AFP that “since the inception of the UPR in 2008, the secretariat has occasionally received requests from states to postpone reviews” — for instance, those of Haiti, Sudan  and Ukraine were at different times postponed due to various national crises.

The Human Rights Council, which meets from September 8 to October 8, will discuss how best to proceed on the US review, Sim said.

Only Israel has previously been a no-show at its own review, back in 2013 when it had disengaged from the council, but in the end they participated in a postponed evaluation.

“The Trump administration’s decision to boycott the UPR puts the US among the ranks of the worst violators of human rights,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) rights group said in a statement sent to AFP.

“This move is a chilling attempt to evade accountability, setting a terrible precedent that would only embolden dictators and autocrats and dangerously weaken respect for human rights at home and abroad.”

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