For the first time in a decade, a country has been dismissed from the U.N.’s premier rights body. The same has happened to Muammar al-Qaddafi, the government of former Libyan strongman in 2011. Russia was suspended from the U.N Human Rights Council on Thursday when the United Nations General Assembly made a decision by voting over the reports of “Gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights”. Russia’s activities in Ukraine made the U.N. General Assembly do so. In the General Assembly of 193 members, 93 votes were in favour, 24 votes were against and 58 members abstained from voting. The assembly needs three votes in favour to take the step of suspending Russia, but the assembly falls short of the required votes. But Russia quit the council on their own creating a similar scenario to the US in 2018 over chronic bias against Israel. With Russia, the case is quite similar but not that much. The United States was re-elected but in Russia’s case, it’s gonna be quite complicated. Before the vote, in a speech, the Ukrainian representative asked the General Assembly to remove Russia from the council. It was the third time when the General Assembly held a vote on the matter related to Russia and this time China voted against the favour after abstaining from giving a vote two times before.
A “special military operation” is carried out by Russia that is formed to destroy the infrastructure of Ukraine but denies attacking civilians. Also, the U.N. ambassador for Russia said No harm was done to civilians as Bucha was under Russian control.
According to the spokesperson of the U.S. mission, Olivia Dalton, to the United Nations, Russia is openly saying that an abstaining or a yes in the General Assembly will be treated as an enemy and this threat is to be taken as the reason to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.
This is Russia’s second of the three years term of the Human Rights Council and it has already quit.
About the vote result, Linda Thomas Greenfield the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said that the vote was “historic” and “unprecedented”. It was for the first time that a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council was suspended from the Human Rights Council.
References
U.N. Kicks Russia Off Human Rights Council
Russia threatens states with consequences over U.N. vote on Human Rights Council
