The United Nations welcomed two new officials to the advisory committee for its Human Rights Council this week in a vote that did not inspire confidence in the humanitarian body.
Iranian diplomat Afsaneh Nadipour and Chinese Communist Party official Ren Yisheng were elected by acclamation as the new Asian representatives for the Advisory Committee of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday. Their new roles give the Tehran and Beijing regimes direct input into the international body’s policymaking on human rights.
Nadipour and Ren were the only two candidates put forward to fill the empty Asian group seats on the committee. Other U.N. member states were given the opportunity to object, but none did.
“This is typical. In many U.N. elections — I would say even the majority of U.N. elections — countries meet behind closed doors and do deals,” said Hillel Neuer, an international lawyer and executive director of U.N. Watch.
He continued, “So let’s say China — for them, for their propaganda, it’s very significant that they have people on human rights bodies … You go around the world and you say, ‘We’re sitting on the U.N. Human Rights Council Advisory Committee.’”
U.N. Watch is a nongovernmental organization that seeks to “monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter.” For years, it has decried the international body’s drift away from action toward empty bureaucracy.
Neuer told the Washington Examiner that one would expect democratic nations to oppose the growing influence of totalitarian regimes at the U.N., but they are more concerned with maintaining business as usual.
“The other countries, [the ambassadors] typically go along to get along, all right?” he said. “That would explain much of how the U.N. works … they’re just like, ‘All right, now it’s your turn, China and Iran. They really care about for their propaganda to be on a human rights body. How about no one else will submit a candidate?’”
The advisory committee is touted as a “think-tank for the Council” and serves as its intellectual arm. Members are tasked with formulating proposals and policy guidance for “Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.”
The committee is supposed to be composed of 18 “independent experts” with seats divvied up by region — five African seats, five Asian seats, two Eastern European seats, three Latin American and Caribbean seats, and three seats for “Western European and other States.”
However, in reality, the “independent experts” are very often officials deeply entrenched in their own nation’s government.
Ren, the career diplomat of the CCP now sitting on the committee, has not historically taken human rights concerns from the U.N. very seriously.
He previously dismissed a report from the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights decrying the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region of China. He called the accusations of widespread systematic persecution a “patchwork of disinformation” and “just a sheet of waste paper.”
Similarly, Nadipour’s track record of human rights advocacy leaves much to be desired.
Lawdan Bazargan, an Iranian human rights advocate working with multiple advocacy groups against Tehran, publicly opposed Nadipour’s election, calling her “no defender of rights.”
She accused Nadipour of actively working against human rights campaigns for women domestically and applying political pressure on Iranian women abroad during her time as ambassador to Denmark.
“Electing her would be like putting a wolf in charge of the sheep — a slap in the face to the courageous women of Iran who have risked everything for freedom, dignity, and equality,” Bazargan wrote on social media platform X ahead of her election.
The Human Rights Council affirmed this year that Iranian authorities are engaged in “gross human rights violations” against domestic opposition, perpetrating “crimes against humanity of murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, persecution, enforced disappearance and other inhumane acts.”
Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, son of the former shah and a leading advocate against the Islamic Republic’s government, told the Washington Examiner that Iran’s presence on the committee is an insult to the nation’s people.
“For 46 years, the Islamic Republic has committed human rights atrocities against the Iranian people,” the crown prince told the Washington Examiner. “Placing this terrorist regime’s representative on the U.N. Human Rights Council [advisory committee] is a slap in the face of all the victims and a stain on the U.N.”
Scoring a seat at the Human Rights Council or its advisory committee is a badge of honor for totalitarian regimes — a gold star from the international community that lends legitimacy to claims that suppression or human rights abuses in their own country are overexaggerated.
Ali Bahreini, the Iranian ambassador and permanent representative to the U.N., celebrated his compatriot’s prestigious election and explicitly noted that it was a breakthrough for Tehran at the organization.
“This is the first time since the establishment of the Human Rights Council that a representative from our country has been elected to this committee,” Bahreini said. “I wish her success and pride.”
Nour News, an Iranian state-affiliated media outlet that proudly flaunts its ties to the Supreme National Security Council, ran a story boasting of Nadipour’s election.
The Washington Examiner has contacted the U.N. Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner for comment on Nadipour and Ren’s election to the committee.
President Donald Trump’s administration is among the most preeminent critics of the Human Rights Council, with the president saying that despite its “fantastic” potential, the body is “not being well-run.”
Trump withdrew from the council during his first term, but former President Joe Biden signed the United States back on after his 2020 victory. Trump withdrew the U.S. again almost immediately after beginning his second term in January.
“They’re going to end up losing their credibility like other organizations, and then they’re going to be nothing,” he warned in February.
He has grown more frustrated with the body since, remarking at his allegedly sabotaged address to the General Assembly in New York last month that “there are two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter.”
Multiple member states joined together to recognize Palestinian sovereignty at the same General Assembly, frustrating negotiations between the U.S. and Hamas.
Neuer told the Washington Examiner that these annoyances could eventually push Trump to take radical action to punish the body by entirely withholding U.S. material participation.
“If they continue this kind of mischief, Trump could tell them, ‘You know, I’m a real estate guy from Manhattan, and I can think of many other good uses of that giant property in Midtown New York, and you know what? There’s a very nice U.N. office in Nairobi, Kenya. Why don’t you guys head there?’” Neuer told the Washington Examiner. “And we’ll see how many people want to go for an annual General Assembly in Kenya. It might be a whole different kettle of fish.”
Still, U.N. Watch does not advocate the U.S. “stick its head in the ground.” In the group’s estimation, participation in the body will always offer the potential for global influence.
“Things at the U.N., some of them are silly and are inconsequential, but other things do impact the way hundreds of millions of people think — influence hearts and minds,” Neuer told the Washington Examiner. “America can take the lead, can speak out in defense of the principles of freedom and justice. So it is an important platform.”
In addition to the Human Rights Council, the Trump administration has already pulled out of the United Nations Population Fund, the World Health Organization, and UNESCO.
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The president’s slashes to funding for the U.N. have led the international body to implement severe personnel cuts, especially in its peacekeeping forces around the world. The Associated Press reported Thursday that the U.N. is preparing for a whopping 25% reduction in its peacekeeping missions.
The White House has pledged to withhold further contributions pending a State Department investigation into each office and agency’s effectiveness.