Biden to return US to UN Human Rights Council

President Joe Biden in planning for the US to rejoin the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) which former President Donald Trump left in 2018, according to The Associated Press.

Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley slammed the decision by the Biden administration to rejoin the council in a tweet. "The UN Human Rights Council is a cesspool of political bias that makes a mockery of human rights. If Biden rejoins the council whose membership includes dictatorial regimes & some of the world’s worst human rights violators, it will fly in the face of our fight for human rights."

According to The Associated Press, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and a senior US diplomat in Geneva will announce the decision to rejoin the council as a non-voting member this year, with the goal of becoming a full member by next year.

Trump withdrew the US from the council, saying it spent too much demonizing the Jewish state of Israel and included too many countries accused of human rights abuses. Additionally, the council did not make reforms and changes the US requested. The council has issued more council resolutions against Israel than any of the countries known for human rights abuses.

At the time Haley said, "Earlier this year, as it has in previous years, the Human Rights Council passed five resolutions against Israel — more than the number passed against North Korea, Iran, and Syria combined. If the Human Rights Council is going to attack countries that uphold human rights and shield countries that abuse human rights, then America should not provide it with any credibility."

A group of House Republicans wrote a letter to Biden, asking him to keep the US off the Council.

Biden administration officials told The Associated Press that the US will press for one of the three full member seats that are now held by Austria, Denmark and Italy.

According to Israel National News, "The UNHRC continues to pass resolutions condemning Israel. Last year, it published a list of 112 companies which operate in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria."

"Israel has become a convenient punching bag and scapegoat for non-democratic states, many of them members of the UNHRC such as Cuba, Pakistan, and Libya, to divert attention away from their own gross and systematic human rights abuses," UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer told The Jerusalem Post in response to a report detailing the anti-Israel claims made at the United Nations Human Rights Council.