Facing Opposition, Saudi Arabia Loses on Human Rights Seat

Saudi Arabia was defeated for a seat in the UN's premier human rights body Wednesday after a campaign by rights groups urging member nations to reject its bid. The 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, the AP reports. 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, 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, UN director at Human Rights Watch, called Saudi Arabia "unfit to serve on the Human Rights Council," per the AP.

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, as well as 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 UN's top human rights body," Charbonneau said. A letter sent last year by Saudi Arabia's mission to the UN 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 the records of Qatar, Bolivia, Congo, and Ethiopia, declaring them unqualified.

(More United Nations Human Rights Council stories.)