The UN General Assembly will vote on Thursday (April 7) on whether to suspend Russia from the U.N.’s premier human rights body. The move was initiated by the United States in response to the discovery of hundreds of bodies after Russian troops withdrew from towns near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, sparking calls for its forces to be tried for war crimes.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield made the call for Russia to be stripped of its seat on the 47-member Human Rights Council in the wake of videos and photos of streets in the town of Bucha strewn with corpses of what appeared to be civilians. The videos and reporting from the town have sparked global revulsion and calls for tougher sanctions on Russia, which has vehemently denied responsibility.
“We believe that the members of the Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine, and we believe that Russia needs to be held accountable,” Thomas-Greenfield said Monday. “Russia’s participation on the Human Rights Council is a farce.”
General Assembly spokeswoman Paulina Kubiak said Wednesday the assembly’s emergency special session on Ukraine will resume at 10 a.m. EDT on Thursday when the resolution “to suspend the rights of membership in the Human Rights Council of the Russian Federation” will be put to a vote.
“We cannot let a member state that is subverting every principle we hold dear to continue to sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council,” she said.
Supporters of the resolution are optimistic about its approval, though not necessarily with the support of 140 countries.
Russia asked an unspecified number of countries to vote “no,” saying an abstention or not voting would be considered unfriendly and would affect bilateral relations.
In its so-called “non-paper” obtained by The Associated Press, Russia said the attempt to expel it from the Human Rights Council is political and being supported by various countries to preserve their dominant position and control over the world and continue “the politics of neo-colonialism of human rights” in international relations.
Russia said its priority Is to promote and defend human rights, including multilaterally in the Human Rights Council.
Russia’s ambassador in Geneva, Gennady Gatilov, called the U.S. action “unfounded and purely emotional bravado that looks good on camera — just how the U.S. likes it.”
“Washington exploits the Ukrainian crisis for its own benefit in an attempt either to exclude or suspend Russia from international organizations,” Gatilov said, in comments relayed by a Russian diplomatic mission spokesman.
Russia and the other four veto-wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council- Britain, China, France, and the United States- all currently have seats on the Human Rights Council, which the U.S. rejoined this year.
The only country to have its membership rights stripped at the council was Libya in 2011, when upheaval in the North African country brought down longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi, said council spokesman Rolando Gomez.
No permanent member of the Security Council has ever had its membership revoked from any U.N. body.
News Credit: India TV News
