UN Watch demanded an explanation on Saturday from democratic countries for why they'd allowed "serial abusers of human rights" to be elected to key positions in the United Nations.
In UN Watch's press release, the NGO cited the UN's Economic and Social Council's (ECOSOC) recent nomination of Iran to the UN’s Committee for Program and Coordination, which would include an active role in shaping policy on women's rights, disarmament, and terrorism prevention, as well as ECOSOC's election of China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan, to the Committee on NGOs.
The democratic countries currently on ECOSOC are the United States, Canada, France, Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Australia, the UK, Finland, Switzerland, and Austria. UN Watch has said that the US is the only state to object to some of the countries elected to the committee, calling Iran, Cuba, and Nicaragua "unfit."
“Appointing China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia to oversee the work of human rights activists is like putting Al Capone in charge of fighting organized crime,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. “It’s truly indefensible and puts lives at risk.”
Dictatorships in majority in UN NGO committee
Neuer also expressed concern that the current state of affairs places dictatorships in the majority on the UN's NGO committee, which oversees UN Watch's work.
"It harms the ability of pro-democracy dissidents to protect the most vulnerable victims and to advocate for human rights inside the United Nations,” he claimed, adding, “By their cynical actions at the UN, major Western states have betrayed their own human rights principles, severely undermining the rule-based international order that they claim to support.”
Neuer also called out the UN for having previously failed to take action to prevent Russia from being elected to similar positions.