TANZANIA – Saudi Arabia was defeated for a seat in the U.N.’s premier human rights body Wednesday after a campaign by rights groups that accused the Saudis of serious rights violations.
The 193-member General Assembly elected 18 new members to serve on the 47-nation Human Rights Council, which allocates seats to regional groups to ensure geographical representation.
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The Geneva-based council reviews the human rights records of all countries periodically, appoints independent investigators to examine and report on issues like torture and situations in countries like North Korea, Iran and Myanmar, and sends fact-finding missions to investigate rights violations, including in Ukraine.
It was created in 2006 to replace a human rights commission discredited because of some members’ poor rights records. But the new council soon came to face similar criticism, including that countries sought seats to protect themselves and their allies.
This year, the Asia-Pacific group had the only contested slate in the election in the General Assembly, with six candidates for five seats. Thailand received 177 votes, Cyprus and Qatar 167 votes, South Korea 161 votes, Marshall Islands 124 votes and Saudi Arabia 117 votes.
Before the vote, Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch, called Saudi Arabia “unfit to serve on the Human Rights Council.”
He pointed to the rights group’s documentation of Saudi border guards opening fire and likely killing hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers trying to cross the Yemen-Saudi border in 2022 and 2023, and the lack of accountability for the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
“Governments that commit crimes against humanity or similar atrocities and ensure impunity for those responsible shouldn’t be rewarded with seats on the U.N.’s top human rights body,” Charbonneau said.
Saudi Arabia’s U.N. Mission didn't respond to calls and an email seeking comment.
A letter sent last year by Saudi Arabia’s mission to the U.N. in Geneva said that it “categorically refutes” allegations that the kingdom carries out any “systematic” killings on the border.
Human Rights Watch and other groups also criticized other candidates.
United Nations Watch in Switzerland, Human Rights Foundation in the United States and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights in Canada called for the General Assembly to also oppose Qatar, Bolivia, Congo and Ethiopia, declaring them “unqualified” because of poor rights records. Human Rights Watch also cited Thailand.
But all the candidates from other regions where there were no contested slates were elected. The 18 countries will serve three-year terms starting on Jan. 1, 2025.
The Africa group’s Benin, Congo, Ethiopia, Gambia and Kenya won seats. So did the Latin America and Caribbean group’s candidates Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico and the Central and Eastern Europe group’s candidates, the Czech Republic and North Macedonia.
The three candidates for the so-called Western and others group known as WEOG also won easy election — Iceland, Spain and Switzerland — after the United States announced in late September that it wouldn’t seek a second consecutive term.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters then that the Biden administration was engaged with its allies “about the best way to move forward” and said Iceland, Spain and Switzerland would be able to represent American interests and values.
Last year, Russia was defeated in its bid to regain a seat on the Human Rights Council after it was suspended in 2022 following its invasion of Ukraine.
In the 2022 election, Venezuela, South Korea and Afghanistan lost contested races, but countries including Vietnam and Sudan, which have been accused of having poor human rights records, won seats.