New composition of UN Human Rights Council as of 2025 and key votes at the 57th session of the Council

On 9 October, the UN General Assembly voted on the new composition of the UN Human Rights Council for the year 2025. Saudi Arabia once again failed to make it onto the Council in the Asia-Pacific Group, obtaining only 117 votes. The country's last failed attempt was in 2021 when it obtained only 90 votes. In the group of Western European and other states, the USA decided not to run for a second term. Trump had already decided to withdraw from the Council during his first term in June 2018, a decision that was reversed under Biden. Germany will be represented on the Council once again in 2025. Key votes during the 57th UN Human Rights Council included an extension of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation as well as for the Fact Finding Mission on Sudan. A resolution tabled by Georgia on technical assistance for its own country also had to be voted on. With regard to the right to development, another resolution was adopted, which focussed in particular on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for its promotion of the right at the regional level. The resolution was sharply criticised by the USA and the EU, among others. The USA also criticised a text entitled ‘From rhetoric to reality: a global call for concrete action against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance’, which, among other things, described the slave trade as a ‘crime against humanity’ for which 'reparations proportionate to the harms committed' were expected. Criticism from the USA and Germany was primarily directed at anti-Semitism in connection with the associated Durban process and the singling out of a single region in the context of the wider problem of racism.