A US-led effort to unseat Russia from the UN Human Rights Council passed on Thursday by a greater than two-thirds majority after the discovery of hundreds of civilians’ bodies following Russia’s withdrawal from the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
The vote in the UN General Assembly, which oversees the 47-member council based in Geneva, was 93 in favour and 24 opposed, including China, with 58 abstentions. Under the council’s 2006 founding documents, a member can be suspended when it “commits gross and systematic violations of human rights”.