UN chief regrets as US exits 'biased' Human Rights Council

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres regretted the withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), said his spokesman on Tuesday.

"The Secretary-General would have much preferred for the United States to remain in the Human Rights Council," reported Xinhua news agency quoting spokesman Stephane Dujarric as saying in a note to correspondents.

"The UN's human rights architecture plays a very important role in the promotion and protection of human rights worldwide," the note read.

Earlier, announcing the country's withdrawal from the UNHRC, US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley described the body as "hypocritical and self-serving" and one that "makes a mockery of human rights".

According to a BBC report, Haley last year accused the council of "chronic anti-Israel bias" and said the US was reviewing its membership.

Formed in 2006, the council has been criticised for allowing countries with questionable human rights records to be members.

The move comes amid intense criticism over the Trump administration's policy of separating child migrants from their parents at the US-Mexico border.

UN human rights chief Zeid bin Ra'ad has called the policy "unconscionable".

The New York-based Human Rights Watch also condemned separation of families, and called President Trump's human rights policy "one-dimensional".

Reacting to the US' exit from the global rights body, Ra'ad said in Geneva that the US withdrawal is "disappointing, if not really surprising."

"Given the state of human rights in today's world, the US should be stepping up, not stepping back," Zeid said.

Haley announced the US intention to quit the council at a joint news conference with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

She called the council a "cesspool of political bias", but stressed: "I want to make it crystal clear that this step is not a retreat from our human rights commitments."

Last year, she told the Council it was "hard to accept" that resolutions had been passed against Israel yet none had been considered for Venezuela, which at the time saw dozens of protesters killed during political turmoil.

Israel is the only country that is subject to a permanent standing agenda item, meaning its treatment of the Palestinians is regularly scrutinised.

--IANS

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