China and Russia accused of waging ‘war on human rights’ at UN

China and Russia are leading a stealthy and increasingly successful effort at the United Nations to weaken UN efforts to protect human rights around the world, according to diplomats and activists.

The two countries have used the UN budget panel, known as the fifth committee, to cut funding for human rights monitors and for a senior post in the secretary general’s office which is supposed to ensure that human rights – one of three pillars of the UN’s function – are not forgotten in its day-to-day work.

The UN Human Rights Up Front initiative was established in 2014, after a series of UN failures in preventing or sounding the alarm over atrocities, culminating in mass killings in Sri Lanka in 2009.

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