The HRC is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system, responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations making recommendations. It has the ability to discuss throughout the year all thematic human rights issues that require its attention. It meets at the UN Office at Geneva.

The Council is made up of 47 UN Member States, which are elected by the UN General Assembly. The HRC replaced the former UN Commission on Human Rights. The Council was created by the UN General Assembly on March 15^th 2006 by the 60/251 resolution. Its first session took place from 19^th to 30^th June 2006. One year later, the Council adopted its Institution-building package to guide its work and set up its procedures and mechanisms.

Among them, there is the Universal Periodic Review mechanism, the Advisory Committee, which serves as the Council’s “think tank” providing it with expertise and advice on thematic human rights issues, and the Complaint Procedure, which allows individuals and organizations to bring  human rights violations to the attention of the Council even with shadow report against their own government. The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a unique process, which involves a review of the human rights records of all UN Member States, provides the opportunity for each State to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in their countries, and to fulfil their human rights obligations. The UPR is designed to ensure equal treatment for every country when their human rights situations are assessed. Its ultimate aim is to improve the human rights situation in all countries and address human rights violations wherever they occur.

The HRC also works with the UN Special Procedures, established by the former Commission on Human Rights and assumed by the Council. These are made up of special rapporteurs, special representatives, independent experts, and working groups that monitor, examine, advice, and publicly report on thematic issues or human rights situations in specific countries.

Review of the Council

When creating the HRC, the UN General Assembly decided that the Council’s work and functioning should be reviewed five years after it had come into existence at the level of the General Assembly. More information about the review and its 2011^th outcome are available at

Human Rights Council review. In June 2016, the Council marked its 10^th anniversary through several events.

A Task Force on Secretariat services, accessibility and use of information technology was established in July 2011. It is mandated to study issues related to the improvement of the secretariat services to the Council and its mechanisms, the accessibility to the Council’s work for persons with disabilities and the feasibility of using information technology.

During the 22^nd session of the Council, in March 2013, additional measures were put in place to  enhance accessibility for persons with disabilities. See Panels and discussions of the Human Rights Council made accessible to persons with disabilities.  

Why, then, US quits HRC, i.e. what are the critics to the HRC? Since Trump entered the White House, the US had engaged in diplomatic efforts to address what they thought were critical flaws, first of all the persistent bias against Israel and the ability of human rights violators, like Rwanda and Cuba, to win elections to the Council. However, what about Russia, and the US itself?

The critics from several States converge instead on the administration staff and its effort to redefine human rights with strange new meanings. It is the case of abortion, State’s birth control, free choice of sexual identity, and a wide-open source description of marriage. There are things the administration is doing exceeding in blatant way it's attributions and imposing them onto the UN States members.

What reforms are necessary for HRC? Does US withdrawal affect its financial support of and engagement with the Council, UN human rights experts, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights? How will the US continue to advance its own human rights agenda? Many are the questions without answer. What is clear is that US withdrawal from the HRC has long been on the wish list of some conservative organizations, like the Heritage Foundation that hosted an apologia by UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Many States would wish to refocus international human rights back to civil and political violations, and away from social changes, such as “speech code” just intended to make people “feel better”. The political vs. social rights debate in human rights is a legacy of the Cold War. The human rights debate, however, is nowadays more a labyrinth than any time since 1948. The HRC administration is not immune from the actual confusion. For example, it has taken a stand for a false claim to an international right to abortion; yet it continues the promote new rights based on gender identity repeatedly rejected by the UN General Assembly. Haley called the HRC “the United Nation’s greatest failure.” She noted that the council has become one of many politicized UN committees. However, this is not just because of its illiberal makeup and its hatred for Israel. Fundamental human rights are weakened by the explosion of human rights list, and of the groups promoting them. No small part of the problem is the shift away from the HRC and from UN member states to the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. This office’s enormous bureaucracy controls (see Human Rights Council Subsidiary Bodies) an even larger UN rights apparatus of treaty bodies and special mandate holders who have often pushed social rights to the extreme.

Haley and her colleagues say they are moving to New York to raise in the UN General Assembly’s third committee those issues they formerly would have brought to the HRC in Geneva. However, that committee’s agenda is largely set by the HRC and by the office of the high commissioner in Geneva. They want raise human rights in the Security Council because, “When we act to protect human rights we act to prevent conflict.” Bringing Geneva’s contentious rights debates to the Security Council may usher the fox into the henhouse. The Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, for example, signed a pact with a Security Council: and its 3^rd committee has long asserted, without any authority, a human right to abortion.