Report: How States try to defund human rights at the UN
New ISHR report exposes how some States are manoeuvring to defund the UN's human rights work. The report documents coordinated efforts to block or cut funding for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and Human Rights Council investigations, as well as inconsistent payments that have deepened the UN’s financial crisis.
See press release here.
In its new report ‘Budget battles at the UN: How States try to defund human rights’, the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) reveals how a small group of States are working behind the scenes and hijacking budget discussions in New York to weaken the UN’s human rights work. Drawing on interviews with diplomats, UN officials and experts, and data from 2019 to 2024, the report shows how China and Russia lead coordinated efforts to defund the UN’s human rights system, while the United States’ non-payment of assessed contributions has exacerbated the financial crisis.
Through the UN General Assembly’s Fifth Committee (5C) and its subsidiary bodies, these States have blocked or cut funding for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and Human Rights Council investigations into abuses committed by governments around the world. While Russia acts as a loud spoiler, China’s influence in key budgetary bodies such as the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) and the Committee for Programme and Coordination (CPC) allows it to obstruct consensus and advance proposals to disproportionately reduce human rights budgets. Long-term attacks on UN human rights funding are now compounded with an entrenched liquidity crisis, as the US proceeds with late payments and suspension of contributions, and a process of UN reform driven by efficiency and cost-saving goals.
As a result, the UN’s human rights pillar – the least funded of its three core pillars – faces severe cuts, with real-term reductions of up to 27% in 2025, and a tangible impact on human rights investigations and protection for individuals and communities on the ground.
As States are set to negotiate budget cuts and the ‘UN80 Initiative’ reform, ISHR urges Member States to defend and sustain human rights funding by:
- Ensuring that reforms under the UN80 Initiative strengthen the underfunded human rights pillar and protect it from disproportionate budget cuts;
- Paying assessed contributions in full, on time, and transparently;
- Suspending the return of unspent cash in the form of credits to Member States’ future contributions, and instead placing them into a cashflow reserve at times of liquidity crisis;
- Investing adequate political and diplomatic capital in Fifth Committee negotiations to safeguard human rights funding;
- Reforming the ACABQ by introducing a code of conduct, ethics rules, and a ‘cooling-off’ period to prevent conflicts of interest;
- Increasing unearmarked voluntary contributions to OHCHR and other UN entities;
- Maintain a principled, consistent human rights position across all UN bodies and ensure Fifth Committee delegates defend resolutions their governments supported in other UN fora.
The report urges Member States to adopt a principled, consistent approach across UN forums to prevent financial manipulation from eroding global human rights protections.