On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence addressed the United Nations Security Council, and called for a complete reformation, including changes to the Human Rights Council’s membership recruitment policies, and an end to the anti-Semitism that infects their resolutions.
Pence began, “The United Nations is bound by its charter to foster ‘international cooperation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all.’ That was the purpose under which the U.N. Human Rights Council was formed. But the truth is, the Human Rights Council doesn’t deserve its name.”
The Vice President then called out the HRC for recruiting brutal regimes. “Today, the United Nations Human Rights Council actually attracts and welcomes many of the worst human rights violators in the world. A clear majority of the Human Rights Council’s members fail to meet even the most basic human rights standards.”
Pence continued, “Cuba sits on the Human Rights Council, an oppressive regime that has repressed its people and jailed political opponents for more than half a century. Venezuela sits on the Human Rights Council, a dictatorship that undermines democracy at every turn, imprisons political opponents, and as we speak is advancing policies that worsen deprivation and poverty that’s costing the lives of innocent men, women, and children.”
Pence said, “This body must reform the Human Rights Council’s membership and its operation. As to its operation, I think of what President John F. Kennedy warned more than 50 years ago, that the United Nations must not become in his words a ‘forum for invective.’”
He also criticized the HRC’s anti-Israel stance. “Unfortunately, today, the Human Rights Council has become exactly that, and particularly the Human Rights Council has become a forum for anti-Semitism and invective against Israel,” he said. “The council’s agenda item seven actually singles out Israel for discussion at every single meeting, something no other country must endure. As evidence, the Human Rights Council has passed more than 70 resolutions condemning Israel, while largely ignoring the world’s worst human rights abusers.”
He emphasized, “It is, as President Trump said yesterday, ‘a massive source of embarrassment,’ and we call on the Security Council and this entire body to immediately embrace reforms of the membership and practices of the Human Rights Council and end the Human Rights Council’s blatant bias against our cherished ally Israel.”
The Vice President also discussed reform for the U.N.’s peacekeeping policies, and warned about the growing danger of North Korea and Iran.
Watch the full remarks below: