Human Rights Council

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Opting Out of Accountability: The United States and the Implications of Withdrawal from the Universal Periodic Review

November 3, 2025

On 28th August 2025, the United States of America (USA) took the step of withdrawing from the UN’s human rights monitoring process, the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The peer review process, through which states evaluate one another’s human rights records, has seen near-universal engagement since the first UPR cycle commenced in 2008. The USA’s decision to withdraw, however, undermines this foundational universality and stymies both domestic and international accountability efforts. In this piece, we argue that the USA’s withdrawal from the UPR is (1) an unprecedented step that risks contributing to further regression in global human rights protections, and (2) supresses civil society organisations’ (CSOs) ability to hold the USA to account both domestically and internationally.

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The Rights of Older Persons: A Historic Step Forward

April 30, 2025

At its 58th session, the Human Rights Council adopted Draft Resolution A/HRC/58/L.24/Rev.1, establishing an open-ended intergovernmental working group tasked with elaborating an international legally binding instrument on the promotion and protection of the human rights of older persons. The Resolution was presented to the Council by a core group of States comprising Argentina, Brazil, the…

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‘Biased’, ‘Selective’, ‘Antisemitic’: Accusations against the UN Commission of Inquiry on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

August 1, 2022

Last week UN independent expert Miloon Kothari publicly questioned why Israel is a UN member and accused Jews of controlling social media, which is a long-recognised antisemitic trope. These are two separate but interlinked issues: firstly anti-Israel bias, and secondly antisemitism. In an interview with Mondoweiss Kothari stated: “I would…

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Russia and the UN Human Rights Council: A Step in the Right Direction

April 8, 2022

The United Nations General Assembly has voted to suspend Russia’s membership of the UN Human Rights Council. This is only the second time in the Council’s 16 year history that a member has been suspended under GA resolution 60/251 paragraph 8 for committing ‘gross and systematic violations of human…

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A dishonest attack on UN human rights mechanisms

August 30, 2021

On 1 May 2021, I received an email from Dr Grégor Puppinck of the European Centre for Law and Justice, requesting to interview me as former Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council. The purpose of the resulting report by the ECLJ was presented in a way that would appeal to many a Special Raporteur:…

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