Originally published 2022-04-08.
On 7 April 2022, the UN General Assembly voted to suspend Russia's membership rights in the UN Human Rights Council, the organisation's main human rights body. The resolution passed with 93 votes in favour, 24 against and 58 abstentions, following reports and images of civilians killed in the Ukrainian town of Bucha during the Russian occupation. Russia said it had already quit the council, and it has not sat on it since.
The vote tally on the suspension of the Russian Federation from the Human Rights Council, displayed in the General Assembly hall at UN headquarters in New York on 7 April 2022. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Suspending a permanent member of the Security Council from a UN body was almost unprecedented. Here is what the vote did, why it happened, how the world split, and what followed.
What the General Assembly decided
The measure, formally Resolution ES-11/3, was adopted at the General Assembly's eleventh emergency special session, the session convened after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. It expressed grave concern at the human rights and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and suspended Russia's rights as a member of the council.
It is worth being precise about what this was and was not:
- It did not expel Russia from the United Nations.
- It did not affect Russia's permanent seat or veto on the Security Council.
- It did strip Russia of its voting and speaking rights as an elected member of the 47-seat Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Suspension requires a two-thirds majority of those voting, and abstentions are not counted. The 93 votes in favour against 24 opposed cleared that bar easily, even though the total number of countries backing the measure was well under half of the UN's 193 members.
Why Bucha triggered the vote
Russian forces entered Bucha, a commuter town north-west of Kyiv, on 27 February 2022 and held it for about a month. After they withdrew in late March, Ukrainian troops entered on 1 April, and photographs and videos of dead civilians lying in the streets spread around the world.
Local authorities later said they had recovered 458 bodies in Bucha, including nine children; most had died from weapons. The UN human rights office documented the unlawful killing, including summary executions, of at least 73 civilians in the town, with more deaths under investigation. Satellite images from Maxar, published by The New York Times, showed bodies on Yablunska Street in mid-March, while Russian troops were still in control.
Russia denied responsibility and claimed the scenes were staged. Fact-checkers and news organisations including the BBC, AP, AFP and Bellingcat, as well as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, found those claims did not hold up against the evidence. On 4 April, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced that Washington would seek Russia's suspension from the council.
What leaders said
Thomas-Greenfield called the vote a historic moment, saying it sent a clear message that the suffering of victims and survivors would not be ignored. She added, according to Reuters, that "a persistent and egregious human rights violator will not be allowed to occupy a position of leadership" on human rights at the UN.
President Joe Biden said the result showed how the war had made Russia an international pariah, and pledged to keep working with allies to gather evidence and hold Moscow accountable.
Russia's deputy UN ambassador, Gennady Kuzmin, described the move as an "illegitimate and politically motivated step" and announced that Russia was leaving the council. Ukraine's ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, dismissed the timing with a line that was widely quoted: "You do not submit your resignation after you are fired."
How the world voted
The result was clear, but the split was revealing. Before the vote, Russia's delegation circulated a letter warning countries that voting in favour, or even abstaining, would be taken into account in their bilateral relations with Moscow.
- In favour (93): largely Western governments and their allies, joined by a number of states in other regions.
- Against (24): China voted no, a shift from its abstentions on two earlier General Assembly resolutions about the war. Its ambassador, Zhang Jun, warned that the move would deepen divisions.
- Abstaining (58): a large group of countries from across the Global South chose not to take sides.
The size of that abstaining group was a sign that, while many governments condemned the killings, a significant part of the world was wary of being drawn into a confrontation between Russia and the West.
How rare is suspension from the council?
The Human Rights Council was created in 2006 to replace the discredited UN Commission on Human Rights. Its 47 members are elected by the General Assembly for staggered three-year terms, with seats shared out among regional groups. The rules allow the assembly to suspend a member that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights.
Before 2022 that power had been used only once: Libya was suspended in 2011 over the violent crackdown on protesters by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi. Russia was the first permanent member of the Security Council to face such a step. It was in the second year of a three-year term due to run until the end of 2023.
Because Russia withdrew rather than waiting out the suspension, there was no seat to restore. Any return would require winning a fresh election.
What happened afterwards
Russia did try to come back. In the council elections held on 10 October 2023, it competed for one of two Eastern European seats against Bulgaria and Albania. Bulgaria won 160 votes and Albania 123, while Russia received 83, well short of the 97 needed, according to Voice of America.
Investigations into Bucha continued. Ukraine asked the International Criminal Court to investigate, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International published detailed reports of executions and torture, and in December 2022 The New York Times linked killings on Yablunska Street to paratroopers of Russia's 234th Air Assault Regiment.
Why the vote still matters
A suspension from a UN body does not stop a war or bring anyone to court. Its significance is political: it recorded, in a formal vote of the world's governments, that the evidence from Bucha was serious enough to set aside the usual reluctance to act against a great power. It also showed the limits of that consensus, with more than half of UN members either opposing the move or abstaining.
For readers trying to make sense of headlines about Russia and the UN, the key distinction is between bodies. The Human Rights Council can be reshaped by a General Assembly vote; the Security Council, where Russia holds a veto, cannot. That is why actions against Russia at the UN have mostly come through the General Assembly rather than the Security Council.
Sources: Wikipedia: UN General Assembly Resolution ES-11/3; Reuters via Inquirer, 8 April 2022; Wikipedia: Bucha massacre; Wikipedia: United Nations Human Rights Council; Voice of America via GlobalSecurity, 10 October 2023; originally reported by the Associated Press. Photo: AP/John Minchillo.
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