January 21 , 2021
The Egyptian Alliance for Development and Human Rights calls Biden’s Administration to take back the United States’ withdrawal from Human Rights Council, UNESCO and World Health Organization (WHO)
The Egyptian Alliance for Development and Human Rights has called the administration of the new American president Joe Biden to take back the decision of the United States’ withdrawal from the international treaties and institutions especially UN Human Rights Council in addition to subjecting the United States record of human rights to the mechanism of Universal Periodic Review such as other countries of the world and get back the United States’ membership in the UNESCO and the WHO.
The Egyptian Alliance assures that the withdrawal decision which was during the previous regime has been taken to support Israel which refused the criticisms by the member states in regard to Israeli violent and racial practices against Palestinians which violates the principle of justice between countries and also violates human rights in the United States especially the prevailed racial crimes against Americans with African origin in addition to exposing the lives of migrants to danger on American-Mexican borders. So the United States have officially announced their withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 because, as they declared and described the situation as “alignment against Israel”.
Moreover, the alliance alludes to the bad American record or history in dealing with the council concerned with monitoring human rights conditions in the world. At the beginning, Washington refused to join the council in 2006 under the pretense that it is like the previous commission ‘ineffective’. Also the withdrawal decision has come after the unprecedented boycott by Israel to one of the sessions of the Universal Periodic Review under the pretense that criticism against Tel Aviv is unjust. The same was the case with UNESCO as the United States and Israel have officially withdrew from it after the allegations of alignment against Israel which represents a ‘hit’ against the agency which the United States participated in establishing it after the Second World War to enhance peace. In addition, UNESCO has been attacked because of its criticism in regard to Israel occupation to East Jerusalem, naming ancient Jewish sites as Palestinian heritage and granting Palestine the full membership in 2011.
Consequently, the United States stopped their contribution to UNESCO which is estimated with about 22% of the total budget of the organization and did not pay financial duties with about 600 million $ which was one of the reasons behind the withdrawal decision by Trump while Israeli duties were estimated with about 10 million $. In 2020, the American Administration announced the end of relationship between Washington and WHO accusing it of failing in managing the crisis of new coronavirus (COVID 19). Besides, the previous American Administration has accused WHO of attempting to serve China’s interests and then the United States decided to stop funding WHO with an amount of 450 million $.
In 2017, Trump signed the withdrawal decision from Paris Climate Agreement which allows countries to compensate for their emissions of carbon dioxide voluntarily. In 2020, the United States signed the document of withdrawal from the Arms Trade Treaty which restricts selling weapons to bodies involved in war crimes. Also Washington has withdrawn from Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia. Moreover, the United States terminated its participation in the Global Compact for Migration as it contradicts with the country’s sovereignty and principles of migration within Trump’s administration.
The Egyptian Alliance for Development and Human Rights calls Biden’s Administration to be interested in taking back the decisions of the United States withdrawal from the international institutions, working upon strengthening the role of the United Nations, not to hide the American human rights records to the UN Human Rights Council and not to evade from their material commitments towards UNESCO and WHO so that they could practice their various roles within an international system working upon combating coronavirus.
