The United States rebuked at the UN in Geneva for refusing to cooperate
Keystone-SDA
The refusal of US President Donald Trump’s administration to subject the United States to scrutiny of its human rights record by other states is not going down well. On Friday in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council approved a decision of non-cooperation.
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As it does every four years, the US should have been scrutinised by the other countries. But it announced this summer that it would not be taking part in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a first since Israel in 2013. Washington is boycotting the work of a body that it accuses of being politically biased.
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After noting this absence, the president of the Council, Jürg Lauber, the Swiss ambassador to the UN in Geneva, closed the meeting. A meeting then approved the decision to postpone the US UPR for a year.
The UN and independent UN experts, who do not speak on behalf of the organisation, have repeatedly targeted Trump’s human rights policy. As have NGOs, which would have liked to relay their criticisms to the Council on Friday.
Translated from French by DeepL/ts
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