Human Rights Council meets again after Russia was kicked off

The United Nations Human Rights Council met in Geneva on Monday with a range of country reports and issues on its packed schedule for this session lasting until July 8.

Will it be business as usual after Russia was suspended over its aggression in Ukraine and then withdrew as a member? Will Moscow still attend as an observer, or will it boycott the session? If Russia does attend, it will have to sit through a UN account of the human rights situation in Mariupol, a city that suffered weeks of Russian bombardment and is now, according to Kyiv, almost completely destroyed.

On its first day, the meeting heard UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet announce she will not stand for a second term. Bachelet denied her decision was driven by a recent controversial visit to China and promised an update on the human rights situation in the country. Human rights groups accuse Beijing of having interned over a million Uyghurs in so-called “re-education camps”. Human rights activists as well as some states have asked Bachelet to release a report on Xinjiang that has been sitting in her drawer since well before the visit.

Palestine, Myanmar, Sudan, Eritrea and Iran are among many countries whose human rights records will be in focus, as well as Crimea, which was occupied by Russia back in 2014.