Tibetan and Uyghur groups and other activists have expressed concern over the U.S. withdrawal from the U.N. Human Rights Council, saying the move will remove a key voice speaking out against autocratic countries that don’t respect human rights, including China.
Advocacy groups said they must now redouble their efforts to win support from other nations.
In an Feb. 4 executive order, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would not participate in the U.N. Human Rights Council, or UNHRC, and would not seek election to the Geneva-based body.
Trump also pulled the United States out of the UNHRC in 2018 during his first term, though it rejoined in 2021 during the Biden administration. Biden than decided not to seek a second term as a board member when the three-year U.S. tenure expired at the end of 2024.
“This action removes American leadership in the U.N., taking away a voice that has held accountable those who disrespect human rights and standing against those whose goal is to subvert the international discourse on human rights to fit autocratic agendas,” said Tencho Gyatso, president of the International Campaign for Tibet.
Gyatso said that the U.S. has been among the countries on the UNHRC that have consistently raised the issue of human rights of the Tibetan people.
The council promotes human rights around the world by investigating human rights violations, making recommendations and addressing human rights emergencies.
“The absence of the U.S. on the U.N. Human Rights Council means human rights advocates and activists will need to work harder to seek support from other countries,” she added.
Bilateral and multi-stakeholder tools
In response, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Radio Free Asia that as a leader in taking actions to address human rights violations around the world, the U.S has bilateral and multi-stakeholder tools that ensure American values and interests are represented globally.
“The United States will continue to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms,” the spokesperson said in an email.
In 2024, the UNHRC sharply criticized Beijing’s systematic human rights violations against Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hong Kongers and Chinese during its evaluation of China’s human rights record, called the Universal Periodic Review, or UPR, which is held every five years to address a country’s human rights record.
At that time, Amnesty International’s China director Sarah Brooks said China sought to “gaslight the global community, denying the scope and scale of violations of human rights documented in U.N. reports, while offering up its anti-human rights approach as a model for other countries.”
Beijing later rejected the body’s recommendations or said that various human rights standards had already been implemented.
Chinese suppression
In a statement on Feb. 5, the International Campaign for Tibet, or ICT, called on the UNHRC to strengthen human rights protections, particularly in Tibet, as the Chinese government systematically attempts to suppress any criticism about its policies that repress Tibetans.
“The Tibet issue is not only about the Tibetan people but is also a global concern involving human rights, environmental protection, and the suppression of freedoms [because] the consequences of neglecting these issues will impact the global community,” said Phuntsok Topgyal, U.N. advocacy officer at the Tibet Bureau in Geneva, the official agency of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile.
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“While not all countries may currently align with Tibet’s cause, the advocacy for human rights and environmental preservation will have wider repercussions, and future generations will recognize its importance for all nations,” he said.
Still, Topgyal said he remained optimistic that Washington would continue to champion Tibetans’ rights and global human rights efforts through other diplomatic and international channels.
But John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said that by pulling out of the UNHRC the U.S. was making it more difficult for the U.N. to address important human rights crises around the world, from North Korea to Myanmar to Sudan to Haiti.
“The harm is made even worse by the suspension and likely permanent cuts to the State Department and USAID assistance to civil society and vital health programs,” he added.
“These cuts are already weakening programs all over the world that were saving lives, supporting vulnerable communities, and promoting democracy, human rights and rule of law,” he said.
Uyghurs ‘have lost an important partner’
The U.S., United Kingdom and other Western countries have condemned China for its persecution and arbitrary detention of some of the 12 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs living in Xinjiang, and called on Beijing to allow genuine freedom of religion and cultural expression.
They also have raised concern about the erosion of freedoms in Hong Kong.
Now, with China, Russia and Iran trying to replace universal human rights with their own definition of rights, smaller countries and democracies will find it harder to uphold the values of the U.N. system, said Hanno Schedler, advisor on genocide prevention at the Society for Threatened Peoples which has offices in Germany and Switzerland.
“The withdrawal of the United States makes it much easier for China to imprint its own version of human rights and human rights definitions within the U.N. system, and I foresee in the upcoming Human Rights Council session China will be emboldened,” said Schedler.
“And now the Uyghurs have lost an important partner in making sure that the crimes committed against them are being talked about on a global stage,” he added.
The departure of the U.S. as a “crucial ally in the U.N. human rights system” will make it easier for the Chinese to repeat their lies on what they’ve done or what they’re still doing to the Uyghurs, Schedler said.
The Chinese government has extended its repression of Tibetans and Uyghurs beyond its borders to those living in other countries.
The Swiss government issued a report on Feb. 12 finding that Chinese authorities are likely using tactics to monitor and intimidate Uyghurs and Tibetans living in the Western country.
The report, based on a study conducted by the University of Basel, found that Chinese authorities have targeted Tibetan and Uyghur dissidents in Switzerland through cyberattacks, communications surveillance and the exploitation of judicial systems.
Additional reporting by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin, Paul Eckert and Malcolm Foster.