.jpg) |
| (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images) |
Responding to the Trump administration’s announcement that
the United States is withdrawing from 66 international organizations,
conventions, and treaties, Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s
Senior Director of Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, said:
“This is a vindictive and reckless assault on the legitimacy and
integrity of the United Nations and the rules-based international order
that has been the bedrock of global cooperation for the past 80 years.
With this latest in a series of damaging attacks, President Trump is
shamefully doubling down on his efforts to destroy the multilateral
system that the United States helped to build from the ashes of World
War Two to guarantee the universal human rights and protection of all
people.
“This was a deceptive announcement, given the United States had
already disengaged from many of these bodies and chosen to defund key UN
agencies. It is yet another troubling example of the Trump
administration’s callous disregard for international law and global
commitments in crucial areas such as promoting development, addressing
the climate crisis, ending violence against children, and achieving
gender equality. For example, the UN Population Fund, which the
administration has now announced withdrawing from after previously
defunding it, is vital in the fight against gender-based violence and
advocating for millions of women and girls around the world.
“Further, in publicly withdrawing from organizations it already had
disengaged from, the administration used the occasion to broadcast its
overt anti-Black racism. With Secretary of State Marco Rubio citing ‘DEI
mandates’ as justification for the withdrawals, the administration’s
announcement that it was leaving the Permanent Forum on People of
African Descent, a body of the UN Human Rights Council, from which the
United States had already withdrawn, was nothing more than a deliberate
act of racism and institutional sabotage.
“These decisions are not just cruel, racist and discriminatory, they
will also no doubt prove to be devastatingly short-sighted by
undermining the interests of people in the United States and around the
world.
“Withdrawing from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in
particular is unprecedented and the United States will be the only
country to have done so. Along with its withdrawal from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other climate-related
bodies, this will actively undermine climate action both domestically
and globally. It will inhibit efforts to protect the US population from
the impacts of the climate crisis and could drive more climate
displacement from other countries. Still, other states should seize this
as an opportunity to now do the important work of fairly phasing out
fossil fuels and funding a just transition, then call on the US to
rejoin later.
“Withdrawing from peacebuilding mechanisms and bodies directly
contradicts the US government’s stated calls for the UN to prioritize ‘peace and security’ opens in a new tab.
This is particularly alarming at a time when President Trump is
threatening several countries with military action and on the same day
he called for a $1.5 trillion military budget opens in a new tab.
The consequences of these withdrawals risk triggering global
destabilization, further endangering human rights everywhere, and
disproportionately harming the most marginalized communities.
“UN member states and implicated international organizations must act
immediately to shore up the multilateral and international legal
architecture essential to universal human rights, including by engaging
in robust defense of these systems and meaningful reforms to preserve
accountability, prevent erosion of standards and protect people all over
the world.”
Contact: media@aiusa.org
https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/usa-international-withdrawals-are-a-vindictive-effort-to-tear-apart-a-global-system-for-cooperation/
.jpg)
