New York: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley are expected to announce to the Press the Trump Administration decision to withdraw the U.N. Human Rights Council today at presser at the Department of State at 5:00PM EST.
The 47-member council, based in Geneva and created in 2006, began its latest session on Monday with a broadside against President Donald Trump’s immigration policy by the U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights. He called the policy of separating children from parents crossing the southern border illegally “unconscionable.”
The U.S. withdrawal had been expected. National Security Adviser John Bolton opposed the body’s creation when he was U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in 2006. In a speech to the council last year, Haley called out the body for what she said was its “relentless, pathological campaign” against Israel. She has also called for ways to expel members of the council that have poor human rights records themselves.
The move comes as the Trump administration is under intense criticism from business groups, human rights organizations and lawmakers from both parties over its recently imposed decision to separate children from parents who enter the U.S. illegally.
On the opening day of the council’s current session, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson criticized the body’s perennial agenda item dedicated to Israel and the Palestinian territories, calling it “damaging to the cause of peace.” Nonetheless, he said the U.K. wasn’t “blind to the value of this council.”
ATN-American Television News will live stream the press conference on its social network platforms Facebook and YouTube at 5:00PM EST (9:00PM GMT)