President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday withdrawing the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Council.
“I’ve always felt that the U.N. has tremendous potential. It’s not living up to that potential right now,” Trump said before signing the order. “It hasn’t for a long time.”
The order withdraws the United States from the UNHRC and stops funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the primary U.N. aid agency for Palestinian refugees. It also includes a call to review U.S. involvement in UNESCO, the U.N. educational, science and cultural organization, from which Trump withdrew the United States during his first term. The order additionally calls for a broader review of U.S. funding to the United Nations in light of “wild disparities” in funding levels between countries, White House staff secretary Will Scharf said.
The order came the same day that Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington.
Netanyahu has been critical of the UNHRC in the past, saying it has a “blatant anti-Israel obsession.” The council has a permanent feature on its agenda, named Item 7, dedicated to discussion of the “human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.”
On Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel welcomed Trump’s decision and that Israel will do the same and stop participating in the UNHRC. “Israel will not accept this discrimination any longer!” he wrote on X.
The United States has an on-again, off-again relationship with the UNHRC that runs largely along partisan lines, with Republicans shunning membership and Democrats taking part despite criticizing the U.N. body as flawed.
What is the Human Rights Council, and what does it do?
The U.N. Human Rights Council is a 47-member body that meets at the U.N. office in Geneva each year to discuss human rights issues. It was established in 2006 and charged with “strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe,” the United Nations says.
It is designed to serve as a forum for discussing human rights issues with U.N. officials, states and experts. Members work to adopt resolutions that can prompt governments to take action. It can also hold crisis meetings, known as “special sessions,” of which 36 have been held so far, according to the UNHRC.
One of the main features of the UNHRC is the Universal Periodic Review, which involves an analysis of all U.N. member states’ human rights records undertaken every 4½ years. The reviews are conducted by a working group consisting of all 47 members of the council. This process allows each state to report on how it has improved its own human rights and to receive recommendations for improvement, the United Nations says.
Which countries are members of the UNHRC?
The council is made up of 47 states, which are elected by the majority of the U.N. General Assembly through direct and secret ballots. Countries serve a fixed three-year term, and membership is limited to a maximum of two consecutive terms, according to U.N. rules.
Elected countries’ contribution to human rights is taken into account, and the selection is based on an equitable geographic distribution. The distribution includes 13 states from Africa, 13 from the Asia-Pacific region, eight from Latin America and the Caribbean, seven from Western Europe and “other states” such as the United States and Australia, and six from Eastern Europe.
By Dec. 31, 2022, 123 of the 193 U.N. member states had served on the council. The United States was a member of the council from Jan. 1, 2022, to this past Dec. 31, according to spokesperson Pascal Sim. However, after this time it automatically moved to the role of “observer state … like any of the 193 U.N. member states that are not Council members.”
“An observer state of the Council cannot withdraw from an intergovernmental body it is no longer a part of,” Sim said in a statement.
What is the United States’ history with the UNHRC?
The UNHRC was created in 2006 during the George W. Bush administration, but Bush initially opted not to have the United States join amid concerns that human rights offenders could gain a seat on the council after being nominated by their regional neighbors.
The Obama administration sought a seat on the council in 2009 in the hope of underscoring the importance of human rights in U.S. policy.
Trump withdrew the United States from the council in 2018 in the middle of a three-year term, in protest of what it called bias against Israel.
The U.N. ambassador at the time, Nikki Haley, described it as a “cesspool of political bias,” citing human rights abuses among member states such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela and Iran. She also took issue with Item 7, the standing resolution critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Mike Pompeo, then secretary of state, said the United States could not “remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organization that makes a mockery of human rights.”
“It is a massive source of embarrassment to the United Nations that some governments with egregious human rights records sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council,” Trump told the U.N. General Assembly in September 2017. He further decried the “unfair cost burden” borne by the United States. The country is the largest contributor to U.N. funding by volume (some 20 percent), but member states such as Norway and Sweden stand out for their contributions relative to their economies’ size, the United Nations has said.
In October 2021, the United States rejoined the UNHRC as part of President Joe Biden’s intent to deepen America’s international engagement and renew U.S. leadership overseas. However, in October 2024, the United States decided not to stand for a second term. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington decided not to seek a second term “because we are engaged with our allies about the best way to move forward,” the Associated Press reported at the time. Miller said the other candidates from the U.S. geographic group — Spain, Iceland and Switzerland — would be able to represent American interests and values.
Before signing the executive order stopping engagement with the UNHRC on Tuesday, Trump said that the United Nations is “not being well run.”
“A lot of these conflicts that we’re working on should be settled, or at least we should have some help in settling them. But we never seem to get help,” he said.
Why has the UNHRC come under criticism?
Critics of the UNHRC have argued that it focuses disproportionately on Israel and gives a platform of international legitimacy to bad actors. Experts have said countries such as China have used the council to advance their own vision of human rights or wash away criticism of their own actions.
But others have argued that participating in the council gives the United States some practical benefits, including by offering it a platform to address global human rights abuses.
Then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused the UNHRC of having “unacceptable bias against Israel and membership rules that allow countries with atrocious human rights records to occupy seats they do not merit,” even while seeking reelection to the body in 2021.
On Wednesday, announcing Israel’s decision not to participate in the UNHRC, Saar, the Israeli foreign minister, said the council “obsessively demonizes the one democracy in the Middle East — Israel.”
Yet he said that “advancing its critical work is best done with a seat at the table” and lauded the council for its work in Syria and North Korea and helping with “fighting against injustice and tyranny.”
Which countries have been suspended from the UNHRC?
Libya and Russia are the only two nations that have been suspended from the body, Sim said. Libya was suspended in 2011 following a crackdown on unarmed protesters. Russia was suspended in April 2022 amid outrage over civilian deaths in Ukraine, with General Assembly members voting 93-24 in favor of the suspension.
Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Gennady Kuzmin, called the resolution “human rights colonialism” and an “attempt by the United States to maintain its dominant position and total control in international relations” at the expense of smaller states.
* Matt Viser contributed to this report.
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