Unprecedented: Trump has pulled the US out of its UN human rights review

Every four-and-a-half years, on a revolving basis, each of the 193 member countries  of the United Nations submits a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council on its domestic human rights record under international standards.

U.N. Secretariat agencies, domestic civil society organizations, whether or not accredited by the U.N., as well as accredited international organizations, also submit statements and recommendations, and those are discussed in an “interactive dialogue” between all UN member states and the country under review.

We are now in the fourth cycle of review of the 193 UN members. And for the first time, one country — the United States — has refused to submit a national report or participate in the human rights dialogue.

This unprecedented refusal to participate in the UN’s Universal Periodic Review procedure was quietly announced on the eve of the U.S. Labor Day weekend. It has attracted little notice in the U.S., but it represents an extraordinary undermining of human rights accountability and evasion of any international scrutiny of the U.S. human right record.

Attempting to justify the U.S. refusal to participate, an official claimed it was in response to the UN Human Rights Council’s “persistent failure to condemn the most egregious human rights violators." 

But this is exactly wrong.

For the last 17 years since the universal review process began, every country the U.S. might consider an “egregious human rights violator” — including China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Belarus and Russia — has repeatedly participated in the process, received the statements of NGOs and U.N. agencies publicly posted in the process, and subjected itself to a dialogue on its human rights record, in which every other U.N. member, including the U.S., European Union members and other democracies, actively participate. Every one has received recommendations for improving human rights compliance.

In fact, when the UN Human Rights Council was created to replace the UN’s former Commission on Human Rights, the Universal Periodic Review was a specific response to criticism that some countries were being repeatedly singled out for criticism based on political considerations, and that the human rights records of politically powerful countries were never being addressed.

So for those who feel that Israel has been disproportionately addressed by the U.N. and countries like China and Russia ignored, this review process is an ideal response, as it considers all countries at equal length. 

Even the best countries could well benefit from recommendations made by civil society and peer countries. The human rights review presents an outstanding opportunity for domestic civil society to express concerns about the human rights situation within their own countries, and for a wide range of other member states to raise such concerns and offer recommendations to the country being reviewed. And countries under review can accept or reject any recommendation, but in many cases they benefit from constructive criticism and suggestions. 

The norm of participation in this process has been so well established that even the most serious violator-states have felt compelled to engage in the process. This has been an enormous success. The U.S. refusal to participate will encourage the many countries that seriously violate human rights and have no desire for such review to now also refuse to participate. The U.S. refusal represents a tragic undermining of global human rights accountability and a severe blow to the reputation of the U.S. as a supporter of human rights.

The decision was clearly intended to avoid domestic or international scrutiny.  Over 150 NGOs have already submitted concerns and recommendations for the U.S. review, which was scheduled for Nov. 7 in Geneva.  The U.S. is bound not only by our Constitution and civil rights laws but also by international treaties to which we are a party, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The U.S. could well benefit from open discussion of many human rights issues inherent in our society, especially in these challenging times. 

One would hope the Trump administration will reverse this decision and participate. That being sadly unlikely, a strong response is needed at both domestic and international levels.

Americans should seize this opportunity to broadly consider the many submissions made by U.S. civil society organizations to the Universal Periodic Review process this year.  Rather than the blocked UN review in Geneva, we need forums across America for civil society to present their serious concerns about our domestic human rights situation.  States and localities should join in sponsoring these forums.  Perhaps the ignominious withdrawal of the U.S. from the review process might help bring broader attention to the human rights issues the U.S. is so unwilling to address.

On the international level, the refusal to participate in the universal process calls for heightened scrutiny specifically of the US human rights record. It would be appropriate for the U.N. Human Rights Council to convene a special session on the human rights situation in the U.S., and to name a special rapporteur to monitor human rights compliance by the U.S.  These measures will both help maintain international attention to human rights issues in the U.S., and discourage other countries from following the U.S. example of skipping out on the process in an attempt to avoid international human rights accountability.

Lawrence Moss, a human rights lawyer in New York, has represented several major human rights organizations at the United Nations, including in the 2006 General Assembly negotiations to create the Human Rights Council and its Universal Periodic Review process.