US wins back seat at UNHRC, India elected sixth term

The United States won a seat on the UN Human Rights Council that former president Donald Trump denounced and quit, joining 17 other nations elected in uncontested votes Thursday. India also elected for the record 6th term of the Human Rights Council by an overwhelming endorsement of UN Member States. The 193-member UN General Assembly elected all 18 candidates proposed by the world organisation’s five regional groups. Benin was the top vote-getter with 189 votes, followed by Gambia with 186, while the United States with 168 and Eritrea with 144 was at the bottom of the list. 

India elected for the record 6th term of the Human Rights Council by an overwhelming endorsement of UN Member States.

We stand committed to work together with fellow members of the Council towards the goal of global promotion and protection of human rights.
(1/3) pic.twitter.com/DtLocUCOxo

— India at UN, Geneva (@IndiaUNGeneva) October 14, 2021

“The absence of competition in this year’s Human Rights Council vote makes a mockery of the word `election,’” said Louis Charbonneau, the UN director for Human Rights Watch. “Electing serious rights abusers like Cameroon, Eritrea, and the United Arab Emirates sends a terrible signal that UN member states aren’t serious about the council’s fundamental mission to protect human rights.” He said Cameroon’s government has suppressed the opposition, crushed dissent, and persecuted lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Eritrean troops have committed widespread atrocities in neighboring Ethiopia’s Tigray region and other serious rights violations, and the rights situation in the UAE “remains dire” with prominent Emirati human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor imprisoned without a mattress in near-total isolation, he said. The Geneva-based Human Rights Council was created in 2006 to replace a commission discredited because of some members’ poor rights records. But the new council soon came to face similar criticism, including one over the fact that rights abusers sought seats to protect themselves and their allies.