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Time to Reform the UN Human Rights Apparatus

(Foundation for Defense of Democracies) Orde Kittrie and Bruce Rashkow - The world's most repressive dictatorships have dominated the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) since its founding in 2006. Since then, the UNHRC has issued 99 resolutions condemning Israel, a robust democracy rated "Free" by Freedom House. This is roughly the same as the total number of resolutions condemning all other countries. Currently, the UN has seven formal bodies investigating Israel, in addition to a new Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Biden administration should leverage its role as the top funder of UN human rights work. Congress should work with the Biden administration to persuade the UN secretary-general to nominate by August 31 a high commissioner for human rights who will halt the UN human rights apparatus' bashing of Israel; dissolve the Israel-Palestine COI, whose mandate and commissioners are biased; and repeal the position of "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967," whose mandate is one-sided. Orde Kittrie, a law professor at Arizona State University, is a senior fellow at FDD. Bruce Rashkow is a former U.S. State Department assistant legal adviser for UN affairs and former director of the UN Office of Legal Affairs' General Legal Division.
2022-08-25 00:00:00
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