Two years ago President Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the UNHRC, the White House said that the decision did not mean that the country would retreat from its stance on human rights — a cause the administration accused the council of betraying.
Now, African countries are pushing for the UN’s top rights body to launch a high-level investigation into “systemic racism” and police violence in the United States and beyond, The text was the subject of heated discussions in Geneva ahead of a so-called “urgent debate” on the topic at the United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday.
The draft resolution, introduced by the African group, condemns “racially discriminatory and violent practices perpetrated by law enforcement agencies against Africans and people of African descent and structural racism endemic to the criminal justice system, in the United States of America and other parts of the world.”
The commission, the text said, should probe “systemic racism, alleged violations of international human rights law and abuses against Africans and of people of African descent in the United States” and elsewhere by law enforcement agencies.
UNHRC, founded in 2006, is designed to review and investigate human rights concerns in U.N. countries, whether they are members of the council or not.
