The U.N. Is Making Trump’s Case on the Human Rights Council

F ew events as poignantly underscored the lamentable record of the United Nations on human rights as the awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize to the former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay. And yet, Pillay, a dedicated antisemite whose Nobel was celebrated by Hamas, is an apt avatar for the U.N. Human Rights Council, an organization whose mission and work are regularly at odds.

No surprise, then, that a 2025 Trump executive order once again ended U.S. participation with the HRC, criticizing it for protecting “human rights abusers by allowing them to use the organization to shield themselves from scrutiny.” This echoes more detailed criticism in 2018 when the U.S. similarly ceased its participation, citing anti-Israel bias, human rights violators regularly winning seats on the council, and willful inattention to “the misery inflicted by regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, Zimbabwe, and China.”

Strangely, however, the European governments and U.N. bureaucrats that predictably condemned the American withdrawal have done precisely nothing to address U.S. criticisms, nor adopted any reforms to entice the U.S. to reconsider. Instead, they have chosen to tolerate and continue its dysfunction, ignoring some of the world’s most pressing humanitarian crises to focus disproportionately on one country: Israel.

The record of bias is plain. According to a database compiled by U.N. Watch, since it was founded in 2006, the Council has adopted 346 resolutions containing language condemning a country for human rights violations. Israel was the focus of 116 (34 percent) of those resolutions.

Alone among the world’s countries, Israel is subject to a separate human rights item: Agenda Item 7, titled “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.” Every other country is examined under Agenda Item 4, titled “Human rights situations that require the Council’s attention.”

In addition, the council currently has twelve “country mandates” that focus on human rights situations in individual countries, such as North Korea and Iran. All are subject to periodic renewal except for the “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967” that remains in place “until the end of the Israeli occupation.”

Instead of taking U.S. criticism to heart, since the U.S. disengaged, the council has adopted eight new resolutions condemning Israel, and its human rights experts and an “independent” Commission of Inquiry have accused it of genocide despite lacking evidence of intent and in the face of contravening evidence.

Meanwhile, countries with human rights records beside which Israel pales continue to be elected to the council. The current membership includes China, Cuba, Egypt, Qatar, Vietnam, and other countries considered “not free” by Freedom House. Just this past week, Burundi and Kuwait, which are also considered “not free,” were elected to three-year terms starting in January.

How do they get elected? They game the system, making sure that only as many countries run for election as there are openings, thereby guaranteeing victory. Last year and this year, every election for a council seat was one of these “clean slate” elections. As Human Rights Watch accurately noted, “This uncompetitive vote makes a mockery of the word ‘election.’”

Historically, “not free” and “partly free” countries have jointly comprised a majority on the 47-member Human Rights Council. They have worked together to water down or block criticism of their abuses. This coordination explains why China, Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, and others have never been condemned in a Human Rights Council resolution.

These problems are not new. The U.S. has consistently voiced concerns about these problems under both Democratic and Republican presidents.

As we argued several years ago, there is no way to make the council perfect. No reform can overcome or eliminate the hostility of many U.N. member states to Israel. If the council reflects the U.N. membership, disproportionate — and biased — attention will be focused on Israel.

But steps can be taken to address the most obvious flaws.

First, the U.N. General Assembly should ensure that Israel is treated like other nations institutionally and procedurally by eliminating Agenda Item 7 so that Israel’s human rights practices are examined under Agenda Item 4 as is the case for every other nation. It should also require country mandates and commissions of inquiry focused on Israel to be subject to periodic renewal, as is the case for other “special procedures” and investigations.

To address non-competitive “clean slate” elections, the General Assembly should amend the process to automatically list as candidates every state that is not currently serving on the council or is otherwise prohibited from running (such as having served two consecutive terms) and hold successive ballots eliminating the lowest half of vote recipients in each region until all the open seats are filled. The General Assembly could go further and increase the threshold for election to two-thirds (129 votes) of the General Assembly, as originally proposed, instead of a simple majority (97 votes).

Together, these changes would ensure that council elections are genuinely competitive and, by giving governments a wider pool of options, increase the odds for free countries to win seats on the council, which should make it more capable of fulfilling its claim as the premier human rights body in the U.N. system.

The Trump administration has been criticized for disengaging with the Human Rights Council. But Democratic and Republican administrations have both condemned council practices, although Democrats have been more willing to try and fix things from within. But U.S. reengagement alone will not fix things, as fundamental changes require support from most U.N. member states. So once again, the question presses: Do human rights really matter to the “international community”? Or is no incentive great enough to abandon the bias and omission that make the likes of Pillay proud?

Danielle Pletka is a distinguished senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the host, with Marc Thiessen, of the podcast What the Hell Is Going On? and the related Substack. Brett Schaefer is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute focusing on the United Nations and international organizations.