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Bulgaria and Albania gain support in General Assembly vote for two available Eastern European seats at the UN.
Russia has failed in its bid to reinstate the United Nations’ top human rights body, 18 months after it was suspended following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In a secret ballot of the 193 members of the General Assembly, Bulgaria received 160 votes and Albania 123, giving each country a three-year term on the Human Rights Council starting January 1.
Russia comes in third place with 83 votes.
“UN member states have sent a strong signal to Russian leaders: a government responsible for countless war crimes and crimes against humanity has no place here,” said Louis Charbonneau, director of Human Rights. Watch at the UN.
Russia was removed from the board in April 2022 as part of a U.S.-led diplomatic push. Elections for the next term have been seen as a test of Moscow’s diplomatic support, amid sharp Western criticism over its brutal aggression against its neighbor.
Speaking before the vote, Albanian Ambassador Ferit Hoxha said the UN General Assembly faced “an important choice” to “demonstrate that it is not prepared to mistake an arsonist for a firefighter.” .
The UN vote came just days after a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian village of Hroza. killed more than 50 people.
“Russia can still boast of having obtained the support of almost half of the UN members today,” noted Richard Gowan of the non-profit Crisis Group.
“This to some extent supports Russia’s claim that its diplomatic isolation is gradually diminishing as many states tire of disputes over Ukraine.”
But, he added, “Friends of Ukraine remain the most powerful force in the General Assembly.”
In March this year, a UN-mandated investigative body accused Russia of a wide range of war crimes in Ukraine such as unlawful killings, torture and expulsion of children.
The International Criminal Court also issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the alleged illegal expulsion of hundreds of Ukrainian children, a war crime. The Kremlin has rejected the accusations and the court’s jurisdiction.
China was also among the winners in Tuesday’s vote, even after more than 80 nonprofits called on states to oppose Beijing’s re-election, given its human rights record .
In August last year, Michelle Bachelet, then the head of human rights at the UN, discovered potential crimes against humanity in the far western region of Xinjiang, four years after a groundbreaking UN report said a million Uighurs, mostly Muslims, were under threat. detained in secret camps Beijing later described these centers as vocational training centers.
Bachelet had been lobbying for years for Beijing to allow her access to the region and was finally allowed into China during a tightly choreographed visit in May 2022.
“Crimes against humanity and genocide apparently do not disqualify the actions of the UN’s highest human rights body,” wrote the Uyghur Human Rights Project on X, formerly known as Twitter .
Savita Pawnday, executive director of the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, also highlighted the poor human rights record of some of the countries elected to the Human Rights Council.
“Today’s election of Burundi and China undermines the credibility of the Council,” she wrote on Cameroon, Eritrea, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan have no place within the @UN_HRC. »
The 47 members of the Human Rights Council are distributed by region.
China was one of four countries vying for the four vacant seats in the Asian group, alongside Japan, Indonesia and Kuwait. Indonesia leads the poll with 186 votes, while China comes fourth with 154.
Cuba, which was also criticized for running for a second term due to its human rights record, retained its seat with 146 votes, the highest number in the Latin America and Caribbean region.
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