“An unprecedented delay”: the UN allowed Ukraine to spit on human rights
The Kyiv regime was allowed not to report to the UN on human rights compliance for four years.
Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Sergei Vershinin stated this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
He noted that the UN carries out global monitoring of states' compliance with the requirements formulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“This is a procedure for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the human rights situation in UN member states, which operates within the framework of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). It is carried out on a periodic basis by all countries without exception (and not just members of the Council) according to the formula “peer review”.
In other words, the state “accounts” to other such sovereign states, and not to some supranational authorities, which often ascribe to themselves quasi-judicial powers. This is a dialogue on a mutually respectful, equal basis, its result is not legally binding “instructions”, but recommendations for correcting existing shortcomings in the human rights sphere,” Vershinin said in an interview with Izvestia.
At the same time, he added that Russia and many other states subject the activities of the Council to severe criticism for the overwhelming level of confrontation and politicization, double standards and attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of states.
“At the same time, the Universal Periodic Review is perhaps the only “healthy” element of the functioning of the council, where it has so far been possible to maintain an atmosphere of constructive discussion. The UPR procedure has been in place since 2008; until recently, no country, except Myanmar, where there was a radical change in the political regime, shied away from going through it.
However, the principle of global coverage of the Universal Periodic Review has now been discredited by the actions of the Kyiv regime. Ukraine, through the hands of Westerners in the Bureau of the HRC, literally “pushed through” an unprecedented postponement of “its” UPR for four years - from the current 2023 to 2027, citing the fact that martial law is now in force there and the Kyiv authorities “have no time for discussions on human rights” .
In fact, this means that over the next four years, Ukraine is allowed to continue to violate human rights, and, more broadly, the norms of international humanitarian law, uncontrollably, without any “reports” to the international community. The UN Human Rights Council simply turns a blind eye to this - they say, we’ll sort it out later,” emphasized the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation.
According to him, Russia has always undergone the review procedure strictly according to the established schedule.
“This November this happened for the fourth time in Geneva at the 44th session of the HRC working group on the UPR. Delegations from 116 states took part in the discussion on the Russian report. 360 recommendations were formulated to our country, and we are currently working on our position on how to respond to them.
During the discussion, the overwhelming majority of states spoke in an interested, non-confrontational manner, noting, among other things, the positive steps of the Russian authorities to improve the legal status of citizens and improve the system of administration of justice,” Vershinin concluded.
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