From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, June 20, 2023
US leads 27-nation opposition to biased anti-Israel UN human rights probe
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The United States, on behalf of 27 countries, condemns today the open-ended nature of the UN investigation into alleged human rights violations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
US ambassador Michele Taylor tells the United Nations’ Human Rights Council the group of countries was “deeply concerned” about the Commission of Inquiry (COI), with its “open-ended mandate with no sunset clause” or closing date.
The countries, including Austria, Britain, Canada and Italy, demanded an end to the “long-standing disproportionate attention given to Israel in the council.”
The COI, which is the highest-level investigation that can be ordered by the Human Rights Council, was set up in May 2021 following a surge in deadly violence between Israelis and Palestinians earlier in the month.
The council established an ongoing independent, international COI to investigate “all alleged violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law” in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
It is charged with looking into “all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict, including systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity.”
The first-ever open-ended COI is chaired by former UN rights chief Navi Pillay of South Africa, with India’s Miloon Kothari and Chris Sidoti of Australia as the other two conducting the probe.
At a press conference in Geneva, Kothari references the calls for a sunset clause.
“We would like to see a sunset of the Israeli occupation… but until that time, an open-ended mandate is more than justified,” the former UN special rapporteur on adequate housing says.
Israel is refusing to cooperate with the investigation.
The Times of Israel Community.