France Criticized the U.S. for Its Stance on Human Rights at the UN
The Permanent Mission of France to the UN stated that the United States can no longer be considered a “beacon of human rights” after Washington opposed the reappointment of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
The UN General Assembly had previously endorsed the candidacy of Austrian diplomat Volker Türk for a second term as High Commissioner for Human Rights. The United States, Russia, North Korea, Israel, Mali, Niger, Nicaragua, Trinidad and Tobago, Burkina Faso, and Argentina, among others, voted against his reappointment. Thirteen other countries abstained.
After the vote, the U.S. Mission to the UN stated that the UN human rights system had allegedly “been losing credibility for decades,” and that Türk himself had “brought it to its deathbed.”
In response, France stated that Washington’s position had placed it in the same camp as the countries that voted against the commissioner’s reappointment.
“Today, they stand on the sidelines alongside North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali, and Russia, isolated. And the world no longer listens to them,” the French mission said in a statement.
Volker Türk is known for his criticism of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, as well as Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. At the same time, his work has been repeatedly criticized by certain human rights organizations, which have accused him of paying insufficient attention to human rights violations in a number of countries.
This was reported by the Permanent Mission of France to the UN on the social media platform X.
As a reminder, UN Secretary-General António Guterres arrived in Syria on an official visit. This is the first trip in nearly 17 years by the head of the United Nations to a country that has endured nearly 14 years of civil war.
Ukraine has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council due to the shelling of the grain corridor.
