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  • SECRETARY POMPEO: Good afternoon.

  • The Trump administration is committed to protecting and promoting the God-given dignity

  • and freedom of every human being.

  • Every individual has rights that are inherent and inviolable.

  • They are given by God, and not by government.

  • Because of that, no government must take them away.

  • For decades, the United States has led global efforts to promote human rights,

  • often through multilateral institutions.

  • While we have seen improvements in certain human rights situations,

  • for far too long we have waited while that progress comes too slowly

  • or in some cases never comes.

  • Too many commitments have gone unfulfilled.

  • President Trump wants to move the ball forward.

  • From day one, he has called out institutions or countries who say one thing and do another.

  • And that's precisely the problem at the Human Rights Council.

  • As President Trump said at the UN General Assembly:

  • It is a massive source of embarrassment to the United Nations that some governments

  • with egregious human rights records sit on the Human Rights Council.”

  • We have no doubt that there was once a noble vision for this council.

  • But today, we need to be honestthe Human Rights Council is a poor defender of human rights.

  • Worse than that, the Human Rights Council has become an exercise in shameless hypocrisy

  • with many of the world's worst human rights abuses going ignored,

  • and some of the world's most serious offenders sitting on the council itself.

  • The only thing worse than a council that does almost nothing to protect human rights

  • is a council that covers for human rights abuses

  • and is therefore an obstacle to progress and an impediment to change.

  • The Human Rights Council enables abuses by absolving wrongdoers through silence

  • and falsely condemning those who have committed no offense.

  • A mere look around the world today demonstrates that the council has failed in its stated objectives.

  • Its membership includes authoritarian governments with unambiguous and abhorrent human rights records,

  • such as China, Cuba, and Venezuela.

  • There is no fair or competitive election process,

  • and countries have colluded with one another

  • to undermine the current method of selecting members.

  • And the council's continued and well-documented bias against Israel is unconscionable.

  • Since its creation, the council has adopted more resolutions condemning Israel

  • than against the rest of the world combined.

  • The United States has no opposition in principle to multilateral bodies working to protect human rights.

  • We desire to work with our allies and partners on this critical objective

  • that reflects America's commitment to freedom.

  • But when organizations undermine our national interests and our allies, we will not be complicit.

  • When they seek to infringe on our national sovereignty, we will not be silent.

  • The United Stateswhich leads the world in humanitarian assistance,

  • and whose service members have sacrificed life and limb to free millions from oppression and tyranny

  • will not take lectures form hypocritical bodies and institution as Americans

  • selflessly give their blood and treasure to help the defenseless.

  • Ambassador Haley has spent more than a year

  • trying to reform the Human Rights Council.

  • She is the right leader to drive our efforts in this regard at the United Nations

  • Her efforts in this regard have been tireless.

  • She has asserted American leadership on everything from the Assad regime's chemical weapons use,

  • to the pressure campaign against North Korea,

  • and the Iran-backed provocations in the Middle East.

  • Ambassador Haley has been fearless and a consistent voice on behalf of our ally Israel.

  • And she has a sincere passion to protect the security, dignity, and the freedom

  • of human beings around the worldall while putting American interests first.

  • She has been a fierce defender of human rights around the world.

  • I will now turn it over to Ambassador Haley

  • for her announcement on how the United States will move forward

  • with respect to the UN Human Rights Council.

  • AMBASSADOR HALEY: Thank you. Good afternoon.

  • I want to thank Secretary Pompeo for his friendship and his partnership and his leadership

  • as we move forward on these issues.

  • One year ago, I traveled to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

  • On that occasion, I outlined the U.S. priorities for advancing human rights and I declared our intent

  • to remain a part of the Human Rights Council if essential reforms were achieved.

  • These reforms were needed in order to make the council a serious advocate for human rights.

  • For too long, the Human Rights Council has been a protector of human rights abusers

  • and a cesspool of political bias.

  • Regrettably, it is now clear that our call for reform was not heeded.

  • Human rights abusers continue to serve on and be elected to the council.

  • The world's most inhumane regimes continue to escape scrutiny,

  • and the council continues politicizing and scapegoating of countries

  • with positive human rights records in an attempt to distract from the abusers in their ranks.

  • Therefore, as we said we would do a year ago if we did not see any progress,

  • the United States is officially withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council.

  • In doing so, I want to make it crystal clear that this step is not a retreat from human rights commitments;

  • on the contrary, we take this step because our commitment does not allow us

  • to remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organization

  • that makes a mockery of human rights.

  • We did not make this decision lightly.

  • When this administration began 17 months ago,

  • we were well aware of the enormous flaws in the Human Rights Council.

  • Instead, we made a good-faith effort to resolve the problems.

  • We met with ambassadors of over a dozen countries in Geneva.

  • Last September, in President Trump's speech before the UN General Assembly,

  • he called for member-states to support Human Rights Council reform.

  • During High-Level Week last year, we led a session on Human Rights Council reform

  • cohosted by the British and Dutch foreign ministers and more than 40 other countries.

  • Our efforts continued all through this year in New York,

  • where my team met with more than 125 member-states and circulated draft texts.

  • Almost every country we met with agrees with us in principle

  • and behind closed doors that the Human Rights Council needs major, dramatic, systemic changes,

  • yet no other country has had the courage to join our fight.

  • Meanwhile, the situation on the council has gotten worse, not better.

  • One of our central goals was to prevent the world's worst human rights abusers

  • from gaining Human Rights Council membership.

  • What happened?

  • In the past year, the Democratic Republic of Congo was elected as a member.

  • The DRC is widely known to have one of the worst human rights records in the world.

  • Even as it was being elected to membership in the Human Rights Council,

  • mass graves continued to be discovered in the Congo.

  • Another of our goals was to stop the council from protecting the world's worst human rights abusers.

  • What happened?

  • The council would not even have a meeting on the human rights conditions in Venezuela.

  • Why?

  • Because Venezuela is a member of the Human Rights Council, as is Cuba, as is China.

  • Similarly, the council failed to respond in December and January

  • when the Iranian regime killed and arrested hundreds of citizens simply for expressing their views.

  • When a so-called Human Rights Council cannot bring itself to address the massive abuses

  • in Venezuela and Iran, and it welcomes the Democratic Republic of Congo as a new member,

  • the council ceases to be worthy of its name.

  • Such a council, in fact, damages the cause of human rights.

  • And then, of course, there is the matter of the chronic bias against Israel.

  • Last year, the United States made it clear

  • that we would not accept the continued existence of agenda item seven,

  • which singles out Israel in a way that no other country is singled out.

  • Earlier this year, as it has in previous years, the Human Rights Council passed five resolutions against Israel

  • more than the number passed against North Korea, Iran, and Syria combined.

  • This disproportionate focus and unending hostility towards Israel is clear proof

  • that the council is motivated by political bias, not by human rights.

  • For all these reasons, the United States spent the past year engaged in a sincere effort

  • to reform the Human Rights Council.

  • It is worth examining why our efforts didn't succeed.

  • At its core, there are two reasons.

  • First, there are many unfree countries that simply do not want the council to be effective.

  • A credible human rights council poses a real threat to them,

  • so they opposed the steps that would create it.

  • Look at the council membership and you see an appalling disrespect for the most basic human rights.

  • These countries strongly resist any effort to expose their abusive practices.

  • In fact, that's why many of them run for a seat on the Human Rights Council in the first place:

  • to protect themselves from scrutiny.

  • When we made it clear we would strongly pursue council reform,

  • these countries came out of the woodwork to oppose it.

  • Russia, China, Cuba, and Egypt all attempted to undermine our reform efforts this past year.

  • The second reason our reforms didn't succeed is in some ways even more frustrating.

  • There are several countries on the Human Rights Council

  • who do share our values.

  • Many of them strongly urged us to remain engaged in the council.

  • They are embarrassed by the obsessive mistreatment of Israel.

  • They share our alarm with the hypocrisy of countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Democratic Republic of Congo,

  • and others serving on the council.

  • Ultimately, however, many of these likeminded countries were unwilling to seriously challenge the status quo.

  • We gave them opportunity after opportunity and many months of consultations,

  • and yet they would not take a stand unless it was behind closed doors.

  • Some even admittedly were fine with the blatant flaws of the council

  • as long as they could pursue their own narrow agenda

  • within the current structure.

  • We didn't agree with such a moral compromise when the previous UN Human Rights Commission

  • was disbanded in 2006, and we don't agree with it now.

  • Many of these countries argued that the United States should stay on the Human Rights Council

  • because American participation is the last shred of credibility that the council has.

  • But that is precisely why we must leave.

  • If the Human Rights Council is going to attack countries that uphold human rights

  • and shield countries that abuse human rights,

  • then America should not provide it with any credibility.

  • Instead, we will continue to lead on human rights outside the misnamed Human Rights Council.

  • Last year, during the United States presidency of the Security Council,

  • we initiated the first ever Security Council session

  • dedicated to the connection between human rights and peace and security.

  • Despite protests and prohibitions, we did organize an event on Venezuela

  • outside the Human Rights Council chambers in Geneva.

  • And this past January, we did have a Security Council session on Iranian human rights in New York.