Two months after President Donald Trump announced a halt to US engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Council, Washington is influencing its work by applying pressure publicly and behind the scenes, seven diplomats and rights workers said.
The United States left its seat empty during a six-week session of the 47-member council ending on Friday, but its lobbying and pressure had some success, the sources told Reuters.
They said the US, which has accused the council of an anti-Israel bias, had focused on blunting a proposal by Pakistan on the creation of an International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM), the most rigorous type of UN investigation, on Israel’s actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The version of Pakistan’s proposal that was passed on Wednesday by the council, whose mission is to promote and protect human rights worldwide, did not include the creation of the IIIM.
The council already has a commission of inquiry on the Palestinian Territories, but Pakistan’s proposal would have created an additional probe with extra powers to gather evidence for possible use in international courts.
A March 31 letter sent by Brian Mast, Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, and James R. Risch, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, cautioned against voting the proposal through.
“Any HRC member state or UN entity that supports an Israel-specific IIM … will face the same consequences as the ICC faced,” the letter said.
It appeared to be referring to sanctions approved by the House of Representatives on the International Criminal Court in protest at its arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defence minister over Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
The final version of Pakistan’s proposal referred only to an invitation to the UN General Assembly to consider an IIIM in the future.
Two Geneva-based diplomats said they had received messages from US diplomats before the change of wording asking them to oppose the new investigation.
“They were saying: ‘back off on this issue,'” said one, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Reuters could not establish whether the revision was a direct result of US actions.
A US State Department spokesperson said it was complying with the executive order signed by Trump on Feb. 4 withdrawing the US from the council and would not participate in it, adding: “As a matter of policy, we do not comment on private diplomatic conversations.”
Pakistan’s diplomatic mission in Geneva did not respond to a request for comment.
“The US seems to be trying to have it both ways. It doesn’t want to pay for or participate in the UN but it still wants to boss it around,” said Lucy McKernan, Deputy Director for United Nations at Human Rights Watch’s Geneva office.
The US and Israel are not members of the council but, like all UN member states have informal observer status and a seat in the council’s meeting chamber.
International human rights institutions are now at a critical juncture, said Phil Lynch, Director of International Service for Human Rights, a non-governmental organization.
“We are potentially confronting a future characterised by lawlessness and raw power,” he said.
The US was once the top donor to the UN rights system, but Trump has said the UN is “not being well run” and aid cuts by his administration have forced scalebacks.
The US and Israel have also opposed the mandate of one of the council’s independent experts during this session.
The Israeli ambassador said on March 24 that Francesca Albanese, a critic of Israeli actions in Gaza, had breached a UN code of conduct through “blatant antisemitic behaviour and discourse,” a diplomatic note showed.
The US State Department spokesperson said Albanese was “unfit for her role.”
“The correspondence received is under consideration,” council spokesperson Pascal Sim said, adding that whenever the council makes a nomination, “it does so with the knowledge that the mandate-holder is expected to serve up to six years in this function.” The internal body that ensures UN experts adhere to a code of conduct condemned what it described as a coordinated campaign against Albanese, according to a letter from the Coordination Committee of Special Procedures dated 28 March.
It found no evidence to support Israel’s complaints against Albanese. However, it is introducing social media guidelines for UN experts in light of some concerns raised about her X posts.