GENEVA: Dozens of civil society organisations called on Monday for international action to pressure Washington to submit to its regular United Nations human rights review, after it boycotted the process last year.
Last November, as President Donald Trump’s administration faced criticism over mounting abuses, the United States became only the second country to ever boycott the so-called Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which all 193 UN member states undergo every four to five years.
Voicing continued outrage over the move, more than 60 civil society and rights groups on Monday issued a joint statement at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva slamming Washington’s “blatant defiance of global cooperation.”
Delivering the statement, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) representative Kari Siegenthaler called on the council and individual member states to “unequivocally condemn UN non-cooperation with the UPR,” and to urge Washington to submit to the review at the next opportunity on November 10.
In separate letters sent to the council president, the council’s 47 member states and to UN rights chief Volker Turk and seen by AFP, the organisations also demanded “concrete action to preserve the universality of the UPR”.
And they insisted that “all relevant UN entities must respond to the present effort of the US to reject participation in the UPR with increased scrutiny."
Highlighting that civil society groups had “documented a severe degradation of human rights” in the United States since Trump’s return to power in January 2025, they recommended that the council should appoint a high-level investigative team or a special rapporteur to investigate the situation.
They also called for Turk to visit the United States, engage with impacted communities and issue a report on the “rights crisis” in the country.
Noor Abdalla, the wife of Mahmoud Khalil — the prominent pro-Palestinian protest leader and green card-holder who the Trump administration sought to have deported last year — delivered a video message to the council Monday on behalf of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Listing alleged abuses, including “horror stories of arbitrary detention, deportation and family separation," she insisted that “even if the US tries to withdraw from its Universal Periodic Review and dismantle every avenue of justice and accountability for victims, the international community cannot give in.”
There was no immediate response from the US, which last year also halted its cooperation with the rights council as a whole.
The rights council’s current president, Ambassador Sidharto Suryodipuro of Indonesia, told reporters earlier this month he remained “hopeful to have an engagement with the United States.”
While some countries have previously requested postponements since the UPR process began in 2008, Israel was the only previous no-show in early 2013, although it eventually underwent a delayed review 10 months later.
While Washington missed its scheduled fourth review last November 7, it still has time to take part before the fourth cycle ends next year, although it has so far given no indication that it plans to do so.
There is no precedent for a country missing an entire UPR cycle.
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