Australia says “Against” to UNHCR resolutions
The votes are in for the Forty-third session of the UN Human Rights Council which sat between 24 February and 20 March 2020.
Australia voted against the following resolutions with a sole partner in three of the four resolutions below,
The United States has boycotted the UNHRC for the last two years.
The co-CEO of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry Peter Wertheim commented: “The UN Human Rights Council has surpassed its discredited and disbanded predecessor, the UN Commission on Human Rights, in its hypocrisy. It has allowed countries with some of the worst human rights records in the world to sit in judgment of countries with far superior records, including Israel, the only genuine rule-of-law democracy in the Middle East. Instead of fulfilling its intended purpose as a beacon of human rights, it has made a hollow mockery of that sacred cause with its cynical, politically motivated agenda, most especially its notorious Item 7 concerning Israel.
Since its creation in 2006, the Council has passed more resolutions condemning Israel than the rest of the world combined. Countries with poor human rights records that have served on the UNHRC include Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia, all of which have been given a free pass, in stark contrast to the Council’s obsessive focus on Israel.
The Australian government is to be highly commended for consistently voting against these resolutions, and for exposing the bias and puncturing the hypocrisy which motivates them. In fact, it has been Australia, this year joined by Germany, which has insisted on bringing these resolutions to a vote so that they cannot simply be waved though as consensus resolutions. We thank Australia and other democratic countries which continue to insist that principle, not politics, should govern the Council’s agenda.”
Resolution: Human rights in the occupied Syrian Golan
“The Council is deeply concerned at the suffering of the Syrian citizens in the occupied Syrian Golan due to the systematic and continuous violation of their fundamental and human rights by Israel since the Israeli military occupation of 1967,
The Council decides to continue the consideration of the human rights violations in the occupied Syrian Golan at its forty-sixth session”
Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan
The resolution covers concerns of the security wall, the settlements, aggression of settlers, etc. Full text
