Recommendations for UN Reform
UNGA Bias
From 2015 through 2025, the UN General Assembly adopted three times more resolutions on Israel (278) than all other countries combined (91). The UK and the EU typically support two-thirds of the resolutions (10 out of 15) brought each year against Israel. Iran, Myanmar, and North Korea only get one resolution each. More than 180 other countries are ignored, including China, Sudan, Turkey, Cuba, Qatar, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, and Egypt. Other UN bodies also single out Israel. This overt bias undermines the legitimacy and effectiveness of the entire UN system.
Recommended Actions
- Western democracies at the General Assembly and other UN bodies have a moral obligation to oppose the grossly disproportionate targeting of Israel - such as 15 annual one-sided resolutions at the UNGA - and to instead demand accountability in the form of UN resolutions introduced on the world's worst regimes.
- Western countries should work to defund and eliminate duplicative and biased UN mechanisms targeting Israel.
UNHRC Bias
The UN Human Rights Council singles out Israel for disproportionate scrutiny, including through a permanent agenda item targeting Israel alone (Agenda Item 7), one-sided resolutions, investigations, and special sessions. Palestinian actors, including Hamas, typically evade any meaningful scrutiny.
Recommended Actions
- Democracies have a moral obligation to confront the UN Human Rights Council's one-sided resolutions and special rapporteurs that target Israel, and often the free world.
- Beyond not participating in the anti-Israel agenda item, Western democracies must demand the Council uphold the UN Charter's promise of equal treatment for all nations by permanently removing Agenda Item 7.
- Western states should call to terminate the biased Commission of Inquiry on Israel.
- In addition, they should move to eliminate the discriminatory mandate of the special rapporteur on Palestinian territories, who is charged with investigating only "Israel's violations" to the exclusion of crimes by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian groups.
- States should demand that all mandate-holders respect the UN's basic impartiality standards, and diligently call out their distortions.
- UN experts who repeatedly violate the UN's Code of Conduct should be denied reappointment or immediately terminated.
Tyrants on UNHRC
As of 2026, only half of the UN Human Rights Council is comprised of democracies rated Free by Freedom House. Instead, serial violators of human rights dominate, including China, Cuba, Qatar, and Iraq. Abuser states use their position on the UNHRC as a false badge of international legitimacy.
Recommended Actions
- Western nations must demand major reform to the UNHRC elections, enforcing membership criteria that require "the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights."
- If this continues to go ignored, the farce of elections should be scrapped, and all 193 UN member states be made automatic members of the UNHRC, as is the case with the UNGA's Third Committee on human rights.
UNRWA & Terrorism
UNRWA, the UN refugee agency for Palestinians, presents itself as a humanitarian agency. In reality, it has become deeply entangled with Hamas, using Western tax dollars to fund and empower terrorism.
Recommended Actions
- States must redirect taxpayer funds away from UNRWA and toward organizations that guarantee transparency, maintain accountability, and operate independently from terrorist groups.
- Funds could be redirected to UNICEF, the World Food Programme, vetted NGOs, and the numerous other international organizations already operating intensively and efficiently across Gaza, the region, and the rest of the world.
Francesca Albanese
Francesca Albanese, the UN rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, justifies terrorist attacks against Israelis and promotes antisemitic tropes. Since October 7th, she has repeatedly engaged in Hamas atrocity denial, with her reaction on that day being to blame Israeli "aggression." Albanese has been condemned by the UK, France, Germany, Italy, United States, Canada, Netherlands, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, and Argentina.
Recommended Actions
- Democratic states should recognize that the term of Albanese was never legally renewed, and that she no longer benefits from any form of diplomatic immunity.
- Democracies should join the U.S. in sanctioning her, and should reaffirm the call, made by the French Prime Minister and others, for Albanese to resign on account of her persistent non-compliance with the UN Code of Conduct.
Misogynistic Regimes on UN Women's Rights Bodies
Key UN bodies dedicated to women's rights, human rights, and international peace have been hijacked by rogue regimes and some of the world's worst violators of the UN Charter, undermining their credibility and distorting their mandates. For example, in April 2021, the Islamic Republic of Iran was elected to the UN Women's Rights Commission. In March 2025, Saudi Arabia became Chair. In April 2026, Iran was nominated to a UN committee overseeing women's rights, peacekeeping, counter-terrorism, and human rights.
Recommended Actions
- Western democracies must work in a coordinated and sustained manner to oppose the election of repressive regimes to UN bodies.
- This should include using diplomatic leverage within regional groups to promote alternative candidates with credible human rights records.
- When such efforts fail, democracies should object to the election of such regimes, either by calling a vote, or by taking the floor to protest the election and disassociate from consensus.
Rogue Rapporteurs
At the UN Human Rights Council, anti-Western and pro-dictatorship figures are routinely appointed as human rights experts. Many of the Special Procedures mandates - for example, the mandate on unilateral coercive measures, which is designed to condemn all sanctions against repressive regimes are inherently anti-Western and harmful to the promotion of human rights.
Recommended Actions
- Democracies should undertake a systematic review of all Special Procedures mandates with a view to terminating those that are duplicative, fall outside the Council's core competencies, or undermine the promotion and protection of individual human rights.
- Western states should not rely on internal UN mechanisms to ensure the integrity of appointments.
- Instead, a coalition of like-minded democracies should establish an independent external vetting process to assess candidates for Special Procedures mandates against objective criteria of independence, impartiality, and professional integrity.
- To safeguard independence, Special Procedures mandate-holders should be prohibited from receiving or benefiting from any earmarked or external funding, whether channeled through OHCHR or provided directly or indirectly by states, foundations, or other entities, including through the funding of staff or volunteers.
- Democratic governments should jointly establish an independent external mechanism to review the work and conduct of Special Procedures mandate-holders.
- This mechanism should not only audit reports, but also investigate alleged violations of professional standards, publish detailed findings, and systematically expose methodological flaws, bias, and reliance on unverified sources.