GENEVA: Two months after President Donald Trump announced a halt to US engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Council, officials in Washington are trying to influence its work by applying pressure publicly and behind the scenes, according to diplomats and rights workers.

The United States left its seat empty during a six-week session of the 47-member council ending on Friday, but its lobbying and pressure had some success, sources said.

They said the US, which has accused the council of an anti-Israel bias, had focused on blunting a proposal by Pakistan on the creation of an International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM), the most rigorous type of UN investigation, on Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The version of Pakistan’s proposal that was passed on Wednesday by the council, whose mission is to promote and protect human rights worldwide, did not include the creation of the IIIM.

The council already has a commission of inquiry on Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, but Pakistan’s proposal would have created an additional probe with extra powers to gather evidence for possible use in international courts.

A March 31 letter sent by Brian Mast, Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, and James R. Risch, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, cautioned against voting the proposal through.

“Any HRC member state or UN entity that supports an Israel-specific IIM … will face the same consequences as the ICC faced,” the letter said.

It appeared to be referring to sanctions approved by the House of Representatives on the International Criminal Court in protest at its arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defence minister over the Jewish state’s bombardment in Gaza.

The final version of Pakistan’s proposal referred only to an invitation to the UN General Assembly to consider an IIIM in the future.

Two Geneva-based diplomats said they had received messages from US diplomats before the change of wording asking them to oppose the new investigation.

“They were saying: `back off on this issue’,” said one of the diplomats.

A US State Department spokesperson said it was complying with the executive order signed by Trump on Feb 4 withdrawing the US from the council and would not participate in it, adding: “As a matter of policy, we do not comment on private diplomatic conversations.” Pakistan’s diplomatic mission in Geneva did not respond to a request for comment.

“The US seems to be trying to have it both ways. It doesn’t want to pay for or participate in the UN, but it still wants to boss it around,” said Lucy McKernan, Deputy Director for United Nations at Human Rights Watch’s Geneva office.

Raw power

The US and Israel are not members of the council but, like all UN member states have informal observer status and a seat in the council’s meeting chamber.

International human rights institutions are now at a critical juncture, said Phil Lynch, Director of International Service for Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation.

“We are potentially confronting a future characterised by lawlessness and raw power,” he said.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2025