CAMEROON – U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk is heading into a Friday vote on whether he should receive a second four-year term, but his reappointment is drawing resistance from critics and some governments over his public condemnation of Israel’s attacks in Gaza and his handling of China’s repression of its Uyghur minority.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres quietly put forward the Austrian lawyer for another term. Following private consultations and without any public debate, the 193-member U.N. General Assembly placed the reappointment vote on its Friday afternoon schedule.
The U.S. State Department sharply criticized the speed of the process, calling the rushed vote “another example of the U.N.’s inherent corruption and incompetence.”
“Volker Turk has turned a blind eye to real atrocities and instead pursued a radical ideological agenda,” the department said. “We will not allow the UN Secretary General (SYG) to reward his crony with a cushy job extension he has done nothing to earn.”
The role of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights is inherently fraught. The office requires its leader to call out abuses by the very governments that make up the United Nations membership. Türk, for example, has been a forceful critic of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Some push for extending Türk’s term only through the end of the year
Türk’s current mandate expires on Oct. 11, and Russia’s U.N. Mission said it has proposed keeping him in the post only until Dec. 31 — the same day Guterres’ second five-year term as secretary-general comes to an end.
Russia has described Guterres’ move to grant Türk another four years as U.N. human rights chief as “unprecedented.” Since the position was established in 1993, none of Türk’s predecessors has served two full terms.
An extension just until the end of the year would leave the choice of a new human rights chief to the next secretary-general. Six candidates are vying to be the new U.N. chief.
Guterres sent letters to regional groups at the United Nations earlier this month informing them of his intention to reappoint Türk. The African group had no objection, but the Latin American countries had several, including Nicaragua, Argentina and Paraguay.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry called Guterres’ action to get a second term for Türk the U.N. secretary-general’s “latest moral failure,” saying on social media that the choice should be left to his successor.
“After years of bias against Israel, the answer is accountability — not rewriting the rules,” the ministry said.
Guterres is ‘following the rules’ on the reappointment, UN says
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric, says Guterres is following the 1993 resolution that established a U.N. high commissioner for human rights and allows for a second term.
“The secretary-general is doing things in a very transparent manner, following the rules and his authority,” Dujarric told reporters Friday. “Consultations were had with member states prior to this and with regional groups.”
Türk “is ready to serve” a new term, rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said. She noted the job calls for the “promotion and protection of human rights everywhere, and as a part of this, he sees it as his role to engage with all states.”
As human rights chief, the longtime U.N. functionary who worked for Guterres at United Nations headquarters in New York, Türk has expressed concerns on issues in China as diverse as the fate of detained individuals — like artist Gao Zhen, lawyer Yu Wensheng and media mogul Jimmy Lai — and counterterrorism and assimilation practices that affect ethnic minorities including the Uyghurs in the regions of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet.
Critics insist he could have done more to publicly follow up on a report issued by his predecessor, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, that said China’s discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang may amount to crimes against humanity.
Türk also has stopped short of joining independent U.N. rights experts who have accused Israel of genocide against Palestinians during its war against Hamas in Gaza. Israel vehemently denies those claims.
Critic focuses on approach to China’s treatment of Uyghurs
Former head of Human Rights Watch Ken Roth called Türk “a disaster” and said “the biggest stain on Turk’s reputation is his utter abandonment of the Uyghurs.” He called them victims of the most severe state persecution that Türk has ignored.
The Chinese government denies the Uyghurs have been or are being persecuted. It maintains its policies in Xinjiang rooted out terrorism and religious extremism after sporadic bouts of violence rocked the region in previous decades.
Türk has used both private engagement with Beijing and public advocacy to support human rights in China, his office said. Roth called that “an admission that he is doing nothing, that he’s putting the plight of the Uyghurs on the deep back burner, and is just pretending to care.”
Roth said Türk has a major problem because the job of U.N. human rights commissioner “should be about stirring up public pressure, and you do that by being tough, provocative, timely.”
He “has succeeded in making a powerful position largely innocuous,” talking about issues in a way “that makes people’s eyes glaze over,” Roth said.
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Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Farnoush Amiri in New York and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
