On October 14, 2021, the United States was elected to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), fulfilling a pledge President Joseph R. Biden Jr. made during the 2020 campaign,Footnote 1 and marking a reversal from the Trump administration's withdrawal from the Council in 2018. While continuing to highlight concerns with the Council, including the membership of human rights violators and a substantive focus on Israel, the Biden administration has emphasized that the Council plays a role in protecting human rights and provides an important forum for discussion.
U.S. policy toward the HRC has shifted several times. When the UN General Assembly established the Human Rights Council in 2006,Footnote 2 the Bush administration voted against the Council's creation and did not run for a seat.Footnote 3 However, when the Obama administration took office, the United States sought and was elected to a seat in May 2009.Footnote 4 Throughout the Obama administration, the United States actively participated in the Council's work, particularly in advocacy for LGBTQ rights.Footnote 5 After President Trump took office, U.S. officials signaled skepticism about the Council, calling for keeping countries that engage in human rights abuses off the Council and for removing an agenda item focused on Israel.Footnote 6 On June 19, 2018—one day after the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights criticized the Trump administration's policy of forcibly separating undocumented families at the U.S. border—the United States announced its withdrawal from the Council.Footnote 7 As part of President Biden's efforts to reengage with international institutions from which the Trump administration had withdrawn, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced in February 2021 that the United States would seek election to the Human Rights Council later in the year and in the meantime would engage with the Council as an observer, seeking to improve the Council from within.Footnote 8
The Biden administration demonstrated its commitment to engagement with the Council over the summer of 2021. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights filed with the Council a report, focusing in part on the United States, on “Promotion and Protection of the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Africans and of People of African Descent Against Excessive Use of Force and Other Human Rights Violations by Law Enforcement Officers.”Footnote 9 The HRC responded by establishing a three-member body of experts on law enforcement and human rights with a “three-year mandate to investigate the root causes and effects of systemic racism in policing, including the legacies of slavery and colonialism, and to make recommendations for change.”Footnote 10 The same day, Blinken issued a statement announcing:
The United States intends to issue a formal, standing invitation to all UN experts who report and advise on thematic human rights issues. As a first step, we have reached out to offer an official visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism and the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues. I also welcome the UN Human Rights Council's adoption today in Geneva of a resolution to address systemic racism against Africans and people of African descent in the context of law enforcement. I look forward to engaging with the new mechanism to advance racial justice and equity.
Responsible nations must not shrink from scrutiny of their human rights record; rather, they should acknowledge it with the intent to improve.Footnote 11
On October 14, the United States was reelected to the HRC for a term beginning January 1, 2022, receiving 168 votes in the UN General Assembly.Footnote 12 The Council's forty-seven seats are allocated by geographic region, and membership requires a majority vote by secret ballot in the UN General Assembly, with elected states serving a three-year term.Footnote 13 Along with the United States, the countries elected to the Council in the most recent election are Argentina, Benin, Cameroon, Eritrea, Finland, The Gambia, Honduras, India, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Montenegro, Paraguay, Qatar, Somalia, and the United Arab Emirates.Footnote 14 They will join twenty-nine existing members states, including China and Russia.Footnote 15
After the election, Biden noted that he “look[s] forward to the United States once more being a constructive voice that works to help push the Human Rights Council to live up to its mandate and to protect the values we hold dear for all people.”Footnote 16 Blinken “thank[ed] the UN Member States for affording the United States the opportunity to serve again on the” Council, while noting both the Council's important role and ongoing U.S. concerns with the body:
The Council plays a meaningful role in protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms by documenting atrocities in order to hold wrongdoers accountable. It focuses attention on emergencies and unfolding human rights crises, ensuring that those who are voiceless have a place to be heard. The Council provides a forum where we can have open discussions about ways we and our partners can improve. At the same time, it also suffers from serious flaws, including disproportionate attention on Israel and the membership of several states with egregious human rights records. Together, we must push back against attempts to subvert the ideals upon which the Human Rights Council was founded, including that each person is endowed with human rights and that states are obliged to protect those rights.Footnote 17
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield provided more details on the U.S. goals for the Council, explaining:
Our initial efforts as full members in the Council will focus on what we can accomplish in situations of dire need, such as in Afghanistan, Burma, China, Ethiopia, Syria, and Yemen. More broadly, we will promote respect for fundamental freedoms and women's rights, and oppose religious intolerance, racial and ethnic injustices, and violence and discrimination against members of minority groups, including LGBTQI+ persons and persons with disabilities. And we will oppose the Council's disproportionate attention on Israel, which includes the Council's only standing agenda item targeting a single country.
Finally, we will press against the election of countries with egregious human rights records and encourage those committed to promoting and protecting human rights both in their own countries and abroad to seek membership. We hold others to our own standard: while we may sometimes fall short of our own ideals, we must constantly strive to be as inclusive, rights respecting, and free as possible.Footnote 18
The most recent election cycle prompted some criticism. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) called the election “a sham,” because every newly elected member ran unopposed, and he further noted that “[t]he United States should not be lending its legitimacy to a body that includes perpetrators of human rights abuses like China, Venezuela, and Cuba.”Footnote 19 These criticisms echo complaints from non-governmental organizations. Human Rights Watch, for example, argued that “[a] noncompetitive United Nations election for Human Rights Council members virtually guarantees seats for candidate countries with abysmal rights records,” and urged countries to deny states with problematic human rights records the requisite majority General Assembly vote required for HRC membership.Footnote 20
The Biden administration nominated Michèle Taylor to serve as ambassador to HRC on October 21, 2021,Footnote 21 and the Senate confirmed her in a voice vote on February 17, 2022,Footnote 22 just before the opening of the HRC's forty-ninth session, scheduled from February 20 to April 1.Footnote 23 In remarks to the Council on March 1, Blinken condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine and praised the Council's “decision to hold an urgent debate on the crisis,” while also highlighting other areas “where the Council's attention is needed,” including Belarus, China, and Afghanistan.Footnote 24 Blinken further pledged that the United States will focus on strengthening economic, social, and cultural rights as well as civil and political rights, work to “counter anti-Israel bias,” and “keep fighting for the human rights of LGBTQI+ people; people with disabilities; members of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities; women and girls; and all marginalized populations and people in vulnerable situations.”Footnote 25
