Asserting that the Biden administration is placing democracy and human rights at the center of its foreign policy, Secretary of State Tony Blinken announced on Wednesday that the US will seek election to the Human Rights Council for the 2022-24 term, almost three years after it quit the UN’s top rights body.
Former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the UN’s Human Rights Council in June 2018, describing it as a “hypocritical and self-serving organisation” that displayed “unending hostility towards Israel”.
The Geneva-based Human Rights Council is a 47-member inter-governmental body within the UN system tasked with upholding human rights.