SSomething unusual happened this week at the UN: The US government decided not to run for a second term at the Human Rights Council. Taking a year off is mandatory after two to three-year terms in one country, but the Biden administration chose to bow out after one term. This is very unusual. What happened?
Various rationales are in circulation, but one, in my view, looms large: Israel. Or more precisely, Joe Biden's refusal to suspend or condition US arms sales and military aid to Israel as its military bombs and starves Palestinian citizens of Gaza.
Elections to the 47-member Human Rights Council in Geneva will be followed by the 193-member UN in New York. The referendum would have given world governments a rare opportunity to vote on US complicity in Israel's war crimes. America may have lost. The Biden administration seems to have calculated that it would be better to withdraw voluntarily than face the prospect of such a humiliating rejection.
To understand that rationale, one must understand the dynamics of Human Rights Council elections. The Council was created in 2006 by the old UN Human Rights Council. Rather than advancing human rights, the Commission has become a collection of repressive governments that are aligned with it and undermine them. They voted to protect themselves and others.
The new council introduced a device to avoid that farce – competitive elections. Instead of backroom deals that filled the old commission with the world's dictators and tyrants, the UN's five regional committees would each propose a list of candidates that the full UN membership could vote on. The idea is to rule out more corrupt governments.
For the first few years, it worked. Every year, Human Rights Watch and its allies single out the most unsuitable candidate for the Council, and every year they withdraw their candidacy (Syria, Iraq) or fail (Belarus, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka). Russia was also defeated in 2016, when its aircraft were bombing Syrian civilians in eastern Aleppo. It lost again in 2023 when it attacked Ukrainian citizens.
The second time the General Assembly met, it worked again and rejected Saudi Arabia for its killing of hundreds of Ethiopian migrants trying to enter Yemen, its not-so-distant bombing of Yemeni civilians, its crackdown on dissidents, including women's rights activists, and its brazen murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
But to avoid that dilemma, regional teams started gaming the system. Many began proposing the same number of candidates as openings, effectively depriving the General Assembly of choice. How about Burundi, Eritrea, and Sudan, etc., which are the places where the PT councils are located. Sometimes there were still competitive slates – Saudi Arabia lost this year because there were six governments claiming five seats for the Asia-Pacific region – but non-competitive slates have become the norm.
Even the Western group, despite its apparent support for an effective council, generally offers noncompetitive slates. A commonly offered explanation is that Western governments do not want to worry about the need to lobby the 193 members of the General Assembly for support. But it was in no position to pressure other regions to present Western governments with competitive options. The Council suffered from their diplomatic laziness.
This year, something seems to have gone wrong with this convenient practice. In this week's election, three seats were filled for the West Group. Iceland, Spain and Switzerland put their hats in the ring, and the United States was expected to renew the closing period. Three years ago, when a similar prospect emerged for four Western candidates for the three posts, Washington insisted that Italy withdraw, allowing it to run unopposed.
But this year, to all appearances, none of the other three Western candidates are eager to give up their quest. It may have reflected the possibility that Donald Trump will win the US presidential election next month. In 2018, he famously resigned his US House seat to protest its criticism of Israel. Iceland, Spain, and Switzerland must be wondering: Why postpone the US nomination if Trump is going to cancel soon?
The Biden administration could have run anyway. After all, why not let the nations of the world choose the best three of the four candidates that were originally going to happen? Instead, it bowed. Yes, maybe that was good – for Iceland, which took its place when Trump abandoned it; to Switzerland, which hosts the Council; But for Spain? The Spanish government is one of Europe's most vocal defenders of Palestinian rights. Washington generally does not hesitate to throw its weight around on Israel's behalf.
Rarely has the opportunity to vote on the behavior of the US government in the UN General Assembly. A competitive referendum to the UN Human Rights Council would have provided such an opportunity. Because of widespread outrage over Israeli war crimes in Gaza — and Biden's refusal to use the enormous influence of U.S. arms sales and military aid to stop it — that poll could easily have resulted in a major rejection of the Biden administration. Rather than face a humiliating condemnation, the US government withdrew its candidacy.
These events once again show how disastrous Biden's support for Israel is for human rights. Because of its diplomatic and economic power, the US government can be a major force for human rights. Apart from Israel, its presence in the council helped protect human rights in general.
But America's credibility has already been compromised by Washington's close alliances with repressive countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes in Gaza. As Biden appears constitutionally unchangeable, human rights protections win.
That defense doesn't mean the end. The Human Rights Council has done well despite Trump's departure. Without the baggage of Washington's ideological hostility, Latin American democracies have led a successful effort to condemn Venezuela. Tiny Iceland has condemned the mass summary executions of ex-Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who has been embraced by Trump, as part of the “war on drugs”.
But it's a sad fact that instead of joining the front lines in protecting human rights at a time of grave threat — in Russia, Ukraine, China, Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Iran and elsewhere — the Biden administration has been disillusioned. Geneva back to Washington. Says he won't run for council again until 2028.
