On November 7, 2025, the United Nations Human Rights Council met for an interactive dialogue on the Universal Periodic Review of the United States of America.
But on the day of its consideration, the US delegation did not show up at the Human Rights Council, marking the latest in a series of resolutions seeking to separate the United States from the United Nations and its subsidiary bodies. In absentia, the Human Rights Council suspended its meeting and replaced it with an organizational meeting, in which it decided to urge the United States to return to cooperation and postpone the universal periodic review until early 2026.
The Universal Periodic Review is a Human Rights Council process through which all UN Member States, approximately every 4.5 years, review national human rights progress and setbacks. This mechanism was a key element in the establishment of the Human Rights Council in 2006, and it is precisely because of its universal nature – subject to review by all states that make up the UN – that it sought to respond to accusations of politicization that affected the previous Commission on Human Rights. Since then, cooperation with the UPR has become almost universal, and with each review cycle, the process has become more firmly established as accepted practice.
For this purpose, three reports were prepared: a report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, summarizing information and recommendations issued by various UN mechanisms; Another brings together the contributions of civil society organizations in the country examined; A third report must be prepared by the state under review (in consultation with its civil society).
These three reports then form the basis of the central part of the Universal Periodic Review: the interactive dialogue through which all Member States, in a kind of peer review, can make recommendations to the country under review to improve the protection and guarantee of human rights at the national level.
On this occasion, the United States did not submit its national report and did not attend the interactive dialogue. This action is not only unprecedented, but also represents an attack on the principle of universal scrutiny and accountability in the international human rights system.
This decision follows the United States’ withdrawal from the Human Rights Council, which was announced in an executive order issued by President Trump in February 2025, which dissolved the Office of the United States Representative to the Human Rights Council and halted financial contributions to the body. Months later, in August, the deadline for submitting the national UPR report passed without the United States submitting it, and subsequent efforts by the President of the Human Rights Council to persuade the country to resume cooperation yielded no results.
This is not the first time the United States has withdrawn from the Human Rights Council, with the first Trump administration taking a similar step in 2018. However, the United States duly participated in the 2020 Universal Periodic Review. Now, as in other areas, Trump’s second term is deepening the escalation, bringing his international human rights policy into line with a domestic context characterized by eroding accountability mechanisms and human rights violations, particularly with regard to the rights of migrants, the LGBT community, and women.
No country in the history of the Human Rights Council has failed to participate in its universal periodic review. Therefore, the United States sets a dangerous precedent for the international protection of human rights and the legitimacy of the world order. When a state with such power redefines human rights domestically to suit its political agenda and transfers this definition to the international arena, this affects the defense of human rights around the world. The extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean are just one example of the Trump administration’s indifference to international human rights law.
Moreover, this absence harms the ability of American civil society to draw attention to the country’s deteriorating human rights conditions and legitimize its claims before the international community.
Although the report was prepared with civil society contributions and many organizations participated in activities parallel to the UPR, there has been no productive exchange between government and civil society in preparing the review, and it is unlikely that there will be exchange to implement the recommendations if they eventually emerge.
The question remains what to do in this case. For now, the US Universal Periodic Review has been postponed until the next session of the Human Rights Council. However, the fourth cycle of the UPR will conclude in February 2027, before the end of the current administration, and the context does not allow us to expect a return to cooperation, although, in theory, the UN could implement the UPR even without the presence of the state under review. At the same time, it is necessary to continue international and civil society protest against the redefinition of human rights promoted by the United States, expose violations within the country, and maintain international pressure to demand accountability from the United States.
Dorothea Kruger is project coordinator at CADAL (www.cadal.org)