What’s going on at the United Nations?

Whats going on at the United Nations?

The United States has been in the news for actions taken at the UN.  A couple of weeks ago the US made headlines by signing an anti-abortion declaration, and most recently when they were reviewed by other members on the basis of Human Rights.

Back in October, the Trump Administration finally signed the Geneva Consensus, an anti-abortion declaration after pushing other members of the UN to also sign.

The US was met with much backlash, as the only other countries to sign were authoritarian regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.

According to Forbes, not one other country ranked above 95 on the Georgetown University’s Women, Peace and Security index. Meaning that the other signatures were from countries where women do not have much safety or many rights.

This decision was met with much backlash from many people, including Americans, Non-Americans, religious and non-religious alike. Many felt that the US was taking a big step backwards in terms of women’s rights.

It is now becoming evident that the US is behind other first-world countries in the terms of Women’s Safety and Rights.

More recently, the US was under review at the UN, on the subject of Human Rights Violations. The New York Post said that the United States was one of ten countries under review and the main causes for concern was the subject of Police Brutality and Black Lives Matter, as well as the politicizing of COVID-19.

Ironically, the countries who were the most critical of the US were North Korea, Saudi Arabia China and Russia. All of which are know for their severe Human Right’s Violations.

North Korea is the prime modern example for starving it’s citizens as well as using torture and public execution commonly for things such as watching American movies, or listening to pop music.

Many bring up the recent violations China committed during the Hong Kong protests. Killing, arresting, and injuring many protesters who simply did not want to be forced into communism.

Saudi Arabia was gravely concerned over the discrimination that is present in the US, which considering the fact that no other religion is allowed to be publicly practiced besides that of Islam, is quite ironic.

Russia was troubled by Trump’s 2018 decision to withdraw from the Human Rights Committee. Trump had decided to leave over an “Anti-Israel” bias the other countries on the committee had, due to Israel’s treatment of the Human Right’s Violations in Palestine.

Many view this as unfortunate, because the simple fact that these countries were the main prosecutors takes credibility away from these important issues that should be fixed.

Many other countries were on the panel and echoed the calls for less discrimination, less politicization of the COVID-19 epidemic, and were concerned about the withdrawal from the Human Right’s Committee, showing that many countries thought this way, not just those with more severe Human Rights Violations.

No further actions were taken during this recurring evaluation that all countries are put under every ten years or so.