Ironically, the United Nations which stands for democracy is one of the most undemocratic and corrupt institutions in the world. While we all saw World Health Organisation (WHO) — an agency of the UN plunge the entire globe into a pandemic of severe consequences, just because it wanted to save certain Chinese overlords – the United Nations Human Rights Council dialled up the bootlicking quotient to maximum when it inducted China into the panel.
Now, the same inter-governmental body, by removing Russia from the council has shown that it is a farce of an organisation that serves no realistic and practical purpose on the global map.
Reportedly, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Thursday suspended Russia from Human Rights Council amid its ongoing armed conflict with Ukraine. Of the 193 members of the assembly, 93 voted in favor of suspension while 24 voted against and 58 abstained – including India.
Apart from India, some major member states to abstain from voting included Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, etc. Nations that sided with Russia include Belarus, China, North Korea, Iran, Kazakhstan, etc.
The resolution, ‘Suspension of the rights of membership of the Russian Federation in the Human Rights Council’, was proposed by a group of countries that included Ukraine, the U.S., the EU, and several Latin American countries and required a two-thirds majority of those present and voting for adoption.
India has chosen the side of peace
India’s representative at the UN, Ambassador TS Tirumurti, explained the reasons why India abstained from the vote, “Since the inception of the Ukrainian conflict, India has stood for peace, dialogue and diplomacy. We believe that no solution can be arrived at by shedding blood and at the cost of innocent lives.”
Tirumurti further added, “If India has chosen any side, it is the side of peace and it is for an immediate end to violence. We continue to remain deeply concerned about the worsening situation and reiterate our call for an end to all hostilities. When innocent human lives are at stake, diplomacy must prevail as the only viable option.”
UNHRC handing out membership to genocide enablers, dictators, and terrorist states
While discussing Russia’s ejection from UNHRC, it is pertinent that one takes a neat gander at the agency’s track record in years gone by. If anything, over the past few years, the UNHRC has been severely discredited for doling out its membership like a freebie to countries with shady human rights records.
From publishing a pro-Pakistan report on Kashmir to giving a seat to Cuba to the likes of Venezuela, where human rights abuses are a regular occurrence under the regime of Nicolas Maduro, the UNHRC has lost all its credibility.
However, the final straw came in 2020 when UNHRC, rather shamelessly granted member status to China – accused of conducting ethnic genocide of Uyghur Muslims, currently lodged in brutal and barbaric concentration camps of the Xinjiang province.
Instead of being punished for its initial COVID-19 coverup, China has been rewarded with a position in a key UN Human Rights Council panel that will pick human-rights investigators: https://t.co/wtqC4d8SM2. But if the world wishes to hold China to account, this is how to do it: pic.twitter.com/A3UyCSE8dn
— Brahma Chellaney (@Chellaney) April 4, 2020
China has spread its tentacles all throughout the UN
China’s ascendancy to a key position in the UNHRC not only allows it to pontificate to other nations about human rights but also effectively shields the CCP from any actions against its atrocities on Uyghurs or the sudden disappearance of the dissenters.
India’s notorious neighbour Pakistan has also received a three-year extension in the UNHRC starting in 2021. Thus, if that doesn’t show the duality of the nincompoop of an organisation then it is hard to comprehend what else will.
Read More: After doctors and journalists go missing, China gets awarded a seat in UN Human Rights Council
Donald Trump left UNHRC in 2018
Former US President Donald Trump understood the duality of UNHRC and left it in 2018 with the then-U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley calling the council, “a protector of human rights abuses, and a cesspool of political bias”. However, after Democrat President Joe Biden came to power, Washington joined the organisation in 2021.
Read More: United States withdraws from the UN Human Rights Council, cites bias against Israel
Whichever side of the fence one may find themselves in the current Russia-Ukraine conflict — painting the former as the outright villain is taking a rather oversimplified approach, without taking into care of the grey areas of the conflict.
Several reports have already come out from Kyiv suggesting how the Ukrainian military is mutilating the Russian soldiers, throwing the Geneva convention into the bin. Thus, if UNHRC was to maintain a sliver of neutrality, it should have outed Ukraine as well. However, since we have already established that UNHRC is a toothless and hapless organisation, it does not really matter if Kremlin stays on as its member or not.