UN rights chief Turk wins second term despite US and Israeli opposition

Austrian lawyer Volker Turk acceptable to go archetypal UN rights main to implicit 2 four-year presumption since station was created.

Volkur Turk, the outspoken United Nations quality rights main who has been a vocal professional of Israel’s actions successful Gaza and crossed the wider region, has won a ballot to service a 2nd word successful his role.

UN subordinate states voted 144-10, with 13 abstentions, connected Friday to support Turk successful his station arsenic UN quality rights chief. His word was acceptable to expire connected October 11, but helium volition present service for an further 4 years.

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If helium finishes his 2nd term, helium volition beryllium the archetypal UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to bash truthful since the station was created successful 1993. The United States, Israel, Russia, North Korea and six others opposed his re-election.

Turk said helium was “deeply grateful” to beryllium re-elected.

“Human rights are the antidote to today’s turbulence and defeatism. I volition springiness my each for the rights of everyone, everywhere,” helium wrote successful a societal media post.

The rights main has angered galore successful Israel by criticising the country’s genocidal warfare connected Gaza, its attacks connected Lebanon, and the “shameful” deficiency of accountability for rights abuses successful the occupied Palestinian territory.

A lawyer by training, Turk has spent astir his vocation moving successful the UN, including posts successful the UNHCR, the UN’s dedicated assemblage for refugees.

He has repeatedly urged Israel to comply with planetary humanitarian law, and said the authorities is accountable for immoderate violations of quality rights that it commits.

The European Union’s delegation astatine the UN welcomed Turk’s reappointment, saying it looks guardant to moving with his bureau to “promote and support quality rights worldwide”.

US and Israeli criticism

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had criticised Turk’s record, saying that nether his enactment the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has “erased the atrocities of October 7, misused funds, and betrayed UN neutrality successful favour of corrupt governmental radicalism”.

Israel has been accused by starring rights groups and UN experts of rampant rights abuses, including carrying retired a genocide successful Gaza.

Jeff Bartos, the US typical for UN Management and Reform, said that the UN quality rights strategy has been losing credibility for decades, that Turk “led it to its deathbed” arsenic Friday’s ballot “kicked the bucket”.

The US has been Israel’s apical state and weapons provider.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres faced disapproval for however helium managed the ballot connected Turk’s 2nd term.

Guterres, whose word expires successful December, sent letters to determination groups astatine the UN earlier this period informing them of his volition to reappoint Turk, and held the ballot conscionable weeks later.

The US Department of State called the rushed ballot “another illustration of the UN’s inherent corruption and incompetence”, saying Turk “turned a unsighted oculus to existent atrocities and alternatively pursued a extremist ideological agenda.”