China’s Election to the UN Human Rights Council

October 13, 2020 was “a black day for human rights," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, the Geneva-based non-governmental human rights organization. Mr. Neuer was lamenting the fact that the United Nations General Assembly was preparing to vote to elect some of the world’s worst serial human rights abusing regimes to membership on the UN Human Rights Council. The regimes elected included China, Russia and Cuba. A Joint NGO Report issued by UN Watch, Human Rights Foundation and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights on October 5, 2020 branded these regimes "unqualified." The Joint NGO Report reached its conclusion based on the criteria that the UN General Assembly itself set, which required that “members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.”