Russia, expelled from the UN Human Rights Council after its invasion of Ukraine, will try to return there on Tuesday, an uncertain bet that will allow its support on the international stage to be gauged.
The UN General Assembly will elect 15 new members of this Geneva-based body on Tuesday for the period 2024-2026.
While the 47 members are spread across the main regions, each regional group generally pre-selects its candidates, who are then easily confirmed by the General Assembly.
But this year, two groups have more candidates than seats: Latin America (Brazil, Cuba, Dominican Republic and Peru are running for three seats) and Eastern Europe (Albania, Bulgaria and Russia are running for two seats).
A few days after the bloodbath in the Ukrainian village of Groza, in which more than 50 people were killed by a Russian attack, Moscow’s candidacy is attracting everyone’s attention.
“We hope that UN members will firmly reject this grotesque candidacy,” a US State Department spokesman told AFP.
“Members of Russian armed forces have committed violations of international humanitarian law in Ukraine, including war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he denounced in particular.
Mariana Katzarova, an expert commissioned by the Human Rights Council, recently estimated that repression in Russia has increased since the invasion of Ukraine, reaching “levels unprecedented in recent history.”
To be elected, a country needs 97 votes from the 193 member states.
In April 2022, 93 countries supported “suspending” Russia from the Council, while 24 voted against it.
This majority against Russia was less overwhelming than that of the resolutions defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity (around 140 votes), but the Human Rights Council issue was more complex, with certain countries with questionable records on the matter fearing that they would one day suffer the same fate.
– By secret vote –
What’s special about Tuesday’s vote is that it will take place in a secret ballot, in a fragmented world where many countries are tired of the attention the West is paying to Ukraine.
“I think Western diplomats in New York are quite concerned,” said Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group, saying an election in Russia would be “a PR disaster for the UN.”
“Russia always says that many UN member states privately sympathize with it but do not support it publicly for fear of angering Western powers,” he added. “Moscow hopes for the support of this supposed silent majority in this secret vote.”
“There is no model of democracy or rogue state, as some sometimes describe it,” defended Russian UN Ambassador Vassili Nebenzia. “No member state can claim to be free from human rights violations.”
Certainly no country has “an unblemished record,” noted Louis Charbonneau of Human Rights Watch (HRW). “But every UN member should recognize that the council has membership criteria that Russia and China completely disregard.”
The NGO therefore called on the member states not to vote for Beijing because of the violation of the rights of the Uighur minority – but China is not risking much in the Asia group, where there are four candidates for four seats.
HRW also calls on member states not to vote for Cuba, while the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) believes that, alongside Russia and China, Burundi is “not worthy” of being a member of the Council.
Other candidates on Tuesday include Ivory Coast, Malawi, Ghana, Kuwait, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands and France.