Saudi Arabia loses bid for a seat on UN’s premier human rights body
UNITED NATIONS — Saudi Arabia was defeated on Wednesday for a seat on the UN’s top human rights body after a campaign by rights groups urging the world body’s members to reject its bid.
The 193-member General Assembly has elected 18 new members to the 47-nation Human Rights Council, which allocates seats to regional groups to ensure geographic representation.
The Geneva-based council periodically assesses the human rights record of all countries, appoints independent investigators to investigate and report on issues such as torture and situations in countries such as North Korea, Iran and Myanmar, and directs fact-finding missions to research human rights violations, including in Ukraine.
It was established in 2006 to replace a human rights commission that had been discredited due to the poor record on the rights of some members. But the new council soon faced similar criticism, including that countries sought seats to protect themselves and their allies.
This year, the Asia-Pacific group had the only contested list in the elections, with six candidates for five seats. Thailand received 177 votes, Cyprus and Qatar 167 votes, South Korea 161 votes, the Marshall Islands 124 votes and Saudi Arabia 117 votes.
Before the vote, Louis Charbonneau, UN director of Human Rights Watch, called Saudi Arabia “unfit to sit on the Human Rights Council.”
He pointed to the rights group’s documentation of Saudi border guards opening fire and likely killing hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers attempting to cross the Yemeni-Saudi border in 2022 and 2023, and the lack of accountability for the 2018 consequences murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
“Governments that commit crimes against humanity or similar atrocities and ensure impunity for those responsible should not be rewarded with seats on the UN’s highest human rights body,” Charbonneau said.
A letter sent by Saudi Arabia’s mission to the UN in Geneva last year said allegations that the kingdom is committing “systematic” killings at the border are “categorically” refuted.
Human Rights Watch and other groups also criticized other candidates.
United Nations Watch in Switzerland, Human Rights Foundation in the United States and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights in Canada called on the General Assembly to oppose Qatar, Bolivia, Congo and Ethiopia, declaring them “unqualified” because of their poor record in the field of law.
But all candidates from other regions where no contested lists existed were elected. The 18 countries will serve a three-year term of office from January 1, 2025.
The African groups Benin, Congo, Ethiopia, Gambia and Kenya won seats. This also applied to the candidates from the Latin American and Caribbean group, Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico, and the candidates from the Central and Eastern European group, Czech Republic and North Macedonia.
The three candidates for the so-called Western and other group known as WEOG also easily won the elections – Iceland, Spain and Switzerland – after the United States announced in late September that it would not seek a second consecutive term.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters at the time that the Biden administration was working with its allies “on the best way forward” and said Iceland, Spain and Switzerland would be able to advance US interests and represent values.