America warning over rights body role

Washington, Tuesday

The US says it is considering what part it will play on the UN’s human rights body, highlighting what it calls a “biased” stance on Israel. UN ambassador Nikki Haley said the US was “looking carefully” at its role on the Human Rights Council.

She said it was “hard to accept” the fact that five resolutions had been passed against Israel, a US ally, but none had been considered on Venezuela. Haley is expected to address the council later on Tuesday.

In an opinion article for the Washington Post last Friday, Haley said the 47-member council needed to “end its practice of wrongly singling out Israel for criticism”.

While she highlighted work done by the group, she said not enough had been done to criticise Iran, a “country with an abysmal human rights record”, and Venezuela, which is in political turmoil and where dozens of protesters have been killed in recent months.

The council is able only to order investigations and record criticism of countries it judges to have violated human rights, but it acts as a crucial diplomatic tool. In recent months, it has issued resolutions on human rights in North Korea, Haiti and Myanmar, among other countries.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously called the body “an anti-Israel circus which attacks the only democracy in the Middle East and ignores the blatant violations of Iran, Syria and North Korea”. -BBC

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