By Human Rights Watch
NEW YORK, Oct 10 2025 – Egypt and Vietnam are on track to secure seats on the United Nations Human Rights Council despite being woefully unfit for membership. The UN General Assembly will elect members to the UN’s premier rights body in a noncompetitive vote on October 14, 2025.

These 2 countries are among 14 member states seeking three-year terms on the 47-nation Human Right Council starting in January 2026. Vietnam, currently a Council member, is seeking re-election.

“Noncompetitive UN votes permit abusive governments like Egypt and Vietnam to become Human Rights Council members, threatening to make a mockery of the Council,” said Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch. “UN member states should stop handing Council seats on a silver platter to serial rights violators.”

Egypt, along with Angola, Mauritius, and South Africa are running for four African seats. India, Iraq, and Pakistan are joining Vietnam for the four Asian seats. For Latin America and the Caribbean, Chile, and Ecuador are unopposed for two seats.

In the Western group, Italy and the United Kingdom are running for two available seats, while Estonia and Slovenia are candidates for two seats for Central and Eastern Europe.

General Assembly Resolution 60/251, which created the Human Rights Council in 2006, urges states voting for members to “take into account the contribution of candidates to the promotion and protection of human rights.” Council members are required to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights” at home and abroad and to “fully cooperate with the Council.”

Candidates only need a simple majority in the secret-ballot vote in the 193-nation General Assembly to secure a seat on the Human Rights Council. That makes it highly unlikely that any of the candidates will not be elected. Nevertheless, UN member states should not cast votes for abusive governments that are demonstrably unqualified for Council membership.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government has continued wholesale repression, systematically detaining and punishing peaceful critics and activists, and effectively criminalizing peaceful dissent. Government security forces have committed serious human rights abuses with near-absolute impunity. These include killing hundreds of largely peaceful protesters and widespread, systematic torture of detainees, which most likely amount to crimes against humanity.

The government also tries to prevent its own citizens from engaging with the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, and punishes those who engage with brutal reprisals. It ignores UN experts’ requests to visit the country.

The ruling Communist Party of Vietnam maintains a monopoly on political power and allows no challenge to its leadership. Basic rights are severely restricted, including freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, association, and religion. Rights activists and bloggers face police intimidation, harassment, restricted movement, and arbitrary arrest and detention.

Mauritius and the UK, among the countries running. signed a treaty that recognizes Mauritius’ sovereignty over the Chagos islands but fails to address the ongoing crimes against humanity against Chagossians and their right of return to all the islands.

The UK forcibly displaced the Chagossian people between 1965 and 1973 to allow the US to build a military base. Mauritius and the UK should comply with their international rights obligations, including Chagossians’ right of return and should provide an effective remedy and reparations.

Angolan President João Lourenço has pledged to protect human rights, though Angolan security forces have used excessive force against political activists and peaceful protesters. South Africa has taken strong stances for accountability on Palestine and other issues. It should be similarly robust with rights violations by Russia and China.

The Bharatiya Janata Party government in India led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has refused access to UN experts. Modi’s party leaders and supporters repeatedly vilify and attack Muslims and Christians with impunity, while the authorities often punish those who protest this campaign of Hindu majoritarianism.

Pakistan should cease the use of draconian counterterrorism and sedition laws to intimidate peaceful critics, and repeal its blasphemy laws. The government should prosecute those responsible for incitement and attacks on minorities and marginalized communities.

In 2024, Iraq passed a law criminalizing same-sex relations and transgender expression. Violence and discrimination against LGBT people are rampant, for which no one is held to account. Iraqi authorities have increasingly repressed activists and journalists.

In Ecuador, the government has attacked judicial independence and security forces have committed serious human rights violations since President Daniel Noboa declared an “internal armed conflict” in January 2024.

In Chile, President Gabriel Boric’s administration has played a leading role in speaking out on human rights violations around the world. Human rights challenges, including racism and abuses against migrants, remain a problem in the country, however.

In the UK, the authorities should end their crackdown on freedom of assembly. Many peaceful protesters in support of Palestinians or action on climate change have been arrested and some imprisoned after demonstrating.

Italy should stop criminalizing and obstructing sea rescues and enabling Libyan forces to intercept migrants and refugees and take them back to Libya, where they face arbitrary detention and grave abuses. Italy also failed to comply with a 2025 International Criminal Court arrest warrant by sending a wanted suspect back to Libya instead of to The Hague.

The Human Rights Council has played a crucial role in investigating abuses in Syria, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, and elsewhere. It recently established an investigation into serious crimes in Afghanistan by all parties—past and present —and extended its fact-finding mission for Sudan. Other countries and situations need scrutiny.

Council members should press for investigations of abuses by major powers, such as China’s crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and others in Xinjiang, and take up extrajudicial killings by the US of alleged narcotics traffickers on sea vessels.

For Council investigations to be credible, it needs financing. It is critical for countries to pay their assessed UN dues while boosting voluntary contributions. This will ensure that independent human rights investigations do not become casualties of the UN’s financial crisis resulting from the Trump administration halting virtually all payments to the UN and China and others paying late.

“The Human Rights Council has been able to save countless lives by carrying out numerous human rights investigations that deter governments and armed groups from committing abuses,” Charbonneau said. “All governments should recognize that it’s in their interests to promptly pay their UN dues so the rights Council can do its job.”

IPS UN Bureau

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By Katsuhiro Asagiri
TOKYO, Oct 10 2025 –  

Toda Peace Memorial Hall. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The screening room at the Toda Peace Memorial Hall in Tokyo fell silent as Kazakh filmmaker and human rights advocate Aigerim Seitenova stepped forward in a black T-shirt and green skirt to introduce her 31-minute documentary, “Jara – Radioactive Patriarchy: Women of Qazaqstan.”　The screening event was co-organized by the Kazakh Nuclear Frontline Coalition (ASQAQQNFC), the Soka Gakkai Peace Committee, and Peace Boat, with support from Japan NGO Network for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (JANA).

The hall itself is symbolic in Japan’s peace movement. It is named after Josei Toda, the second president of the Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai, who in 1957 made his historic Declaration Calling for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons before 50,000 youth members. That appeal has become a moral pillar of Soka Gakkai’s global campaign for peace and disarmament.

Reclaiming Women’s Voices

Semipalatinsk Former Nuclear Weapon Test site. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri

“This film was made to make visible the voices of women who have lived in silence. They are not victims—they are storytellers and changemakers,” Seitenova told the audience of diplomats, journalists, students and peace activists.

Her documentary, Jara—meaning “wound” in Kazakh—tells the stories of women from Semey, formerly known as Semipalatinsk, the site of 456 Soviet nuclear tests conducted between 1949 and 1989.

Unlike earlier films that focused on physical devastation and disability caused by nuclear testing, Jara explores the unseen and intergenerational impacts: the stigma, the psychological scars, and the inherited fear of bearing children.

“Most films show Semey as ‘the most nuked place on Earth.’ I wanted to show resilience instead of fear—to reclaim our story in our own voice,” she said.

Aigerim Seitenova Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri

Breaking the Silence

Seitenova’s personal connection to the issue began with humiliation.

As a university student in Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, when she introduced herself as being from Semey, a classmate mockingly asked if she had “a tail.”

“That moment stayed with me,” she recalled. “It made me realise that nuclear harm is not only physical. It lives on in prejudice and silence.”

That experience would later drive her to create a film that breaks that silence.

Patriarchy and Nuclear Power

In Jara, women appear not as passive victims but as active participants in their communities, confronting the legacies of secrecy and discrimination.

“In militarised societies, nuclear weapons are symbols of superiority,” Seitenova said in her speech. “Peace and cooperation are dismissed as weak— as feminine. That’s the mindset we must challenge.”

Her feminist perspective connects nuclear weapons and patriarchy, arguing that both systems thrive on domination and power over others.

From the Steppes to Global Advocacy

Author made a documentary of the 2018 conference which Seitenova participated. Credit:INPS Japan

Born into a third-generation family affected by radiation exposure in Semey, Seitenova said her activism was inspired by “quiet endurance and the absence of open discussion.”

In 2018, she joined the Youth for CTBTO and Group of Eminent Persons (GEM) ‘Youth International Conference’ organised by the Kazakh government. During the five-day programme, young representatives from nuclear-weapon, non-nuclear and nuclear-dependent states travelled along with nuclear disarmament experts overnight by train from Astana to Kurchatov, visiting the former test site. “It was the first time I saw the land that shaped my people’s history,” she said.

Aigerim Seitenova captured in a scene from “Jara”. Credit: Aigerim Seitenova

She cites Togzhan Kassenova’s Atomic Steppe and Ray Acheson’s Banning the Bomb, Smashing the Patriarchy as works that helped her articulate how nuclear policy and gender inequality are intertwined.

Mr. Hiroshi Nose, director of Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum explaining the impact of Atom Bomb. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri, President of INPS Japan

Shared Suffering, Shared Hope

In October, Seitenova travelled to Japan to participate in the 24th World Congress of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) in Nagasaki, meeting survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Seitenova(Center) was among a youth representative from communities affected by nuclear testings sharing her experiences at the Nuclear Survivors Forum held at UN Church Center, New York. Credit: ICAN / Haruka Sakaguchi

“Japan and Kazakhstan share the experience of nuclear suffering,” she said. “But we can transform that pain into dialogue—and into peace.”

That spirit carried into the Tokyo screening, where diplomats, journalists and peace activists discussed nuclear justice, gender equality and youth participation.

Turning Pain into Power

Through her organisation, the Kazakh Nuclear Frontline Coalition (ASQAQQNFC), Seitenova works to connect nuclear-affected communities with policymakers implementing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

“The fight for nuclear justice is not about the past—it’s about the future,” she said. “It’s about ensuring that no one else has to live with the consequences of nuclear weapons.”

As the applause filled the Toda Peace Memorial Hall, the resonance was unmistakable—linking a hall named for a man who condemned the bomb to the wind-scarred plains of Semey, where the voices of women are at last being heard.

Credit: SGI

This article is brought to you by INPS Japan in collaboration with Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

INPS Japan

IPS UN Bureau

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 10 2025 – Faced with a severe liquidity crisis and a hostile Trump administration, the UN continues to merge some of its multiple agencies, and move them out of New York, relocating to Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Perhaps the first two agencies to be merged will be UN Women (created in 2010) and the UN Population Fund (created in 1967), with some staffers moved to Bonn and others to Nairobi.

And the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) may be next in line bound to Nairobi.

The UN is also considering several potential mergers primarily to reduce costs and improve effectiveness, including merging the UN AIDS agency (UNAIDS) into the World Health Organization (WHO), consolidating the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) with the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and restructuring the Department of Peace Operations (DPO) and Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA).

“Externally, there has been enthusiastic reception of members of the UN family like UN-Women (but also UNFPA and UNICEF) relocating global functions to Nairobi and Bonn,” according to a UN report.

The new locations may also include Bangkok, Doha, Dubai and Istanbul.

Addressing the 80th UN General Assembly sessions last month, the President of Turkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered Istanbul as a new relocation site describing the Turkish city as “an excellent UN hub”.

The UN’s cash crisis, prompting mergers and relocations, has been triggered by $2.8 billion in unpaid U.S. dues, both for regular and peacekeeping budgets. And, as of last week, only 139 out of 193 countries have paid their dues in full, with 54 countries in arrears.

Asked for an update on the move to Nairobi, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters October 3, the UN complex in Nairobi is growing.

“The last time I was there, there was construction. It’s been expanding for some time. I think a number of agencies are already looking at moving. A lot of it will also depend on the budget, and decisions by Member States”.

Asked about the offer of Istanbul, he said, the relocation of posts from a number of more traditional UN headquarter cities to others is something that is being looked at, something that has already happened.

“Istanbul is already home to a number of regional hubs for various UN organizations. So, it is something we’re continuously evaluating.”

Kul Gautam. a former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, told IPS UNICEF has launched its own “Future Focus Initiative” to increase the organization’s agility, efficiency, and effectiveness in response to declining funding.

The initiative includes significant budget cuts at headquarters and regional offices, staff relocation to lower-cost locations, and the consolidation of some regional offices.

As part of this exercise, he said, UNICEF’s core budget at Headquarters and Regional Offices will be cut by 25%, and about 70% of Headquarters staff will be relocated to lower-cost duty stations like Bangkok, Nairobi, and perhaps even Doha, Dubai, and Istanbul that are closer to most UNICEF field offices.

“Such redeployment of staff can help streamline operations and reduce operating costs”.

A major original mission of many specialized UN agencies, funds, and programmes, Gautam pointed out, was to provide specialized technical expertise that was not readily available in developing countries.

“Considering that many developing countries now have highly skilled professionals (many of whom migrate to high-income countries in search of better prospects), UN offices should seriously consider employing more national professionals in developing countries at considerably lower emoluments than very high-cost expatriates from the Global North”.

Decades ago, he recalled, UNICEF pioneered the practice of employing a fairly large number of national professionals in its country offices.

“All UN agencies should now consider emulating UNICEF’s example, and UNICEF itself should expand this practice, while retaining the basic international nature of the organization”, said Gautam, author of ‘Global Citizen from Gulmi: My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of United Nations’.

While bureaucracies and vested interests of staff in the Secretariat of various organizations are partly responsible for the proliferation of the mandates and overly complex and convoluted reports, Member States need to restrain their demands and appetite for unduly detailed and unnecessarily frequent reports.

With the advent of AI, there is an opportunity now to consolidate and shorten these reports drastically.

Gautam said: “Even the frequency of Board meetings is excessive. Currently, UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA, UN Women, and WFP Boards meet three times each year. Cutting those Board meetings to twice a year would save many resources without compromising on the accountability of the agencies.”

Speaking of mergers, Dr Purnima Mane, former Deputy Executive Director (Programme) and UN Assistant-Secretary-General (ASG) at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS it is not surprising that under the UN 80 restructuring plan, the UN is considering some major measures like merging some of its agencies like UNFPA and UN Women and moving some of their staff out of New York to other countries.

Streamlining might temporarily resolve the current liquidity crisis and the move away from New York would demonstrate moving towards decentralization – both laudable goals. However, in the current scenario these appear like short term steps mainly to cut costs without evidence of how they fit into an altered strategic vision for the UN, she said.

“How these steps are part of a bigger strategic approach to make the UN more effective in what it wishes to achieve is unclear. Cutbacks and mergers can provide short term relief but they also can obviously create problems of their own, such as losing out on the gains made over the years in the areas of work of these agencies and programs, all of which are critical to development.”

This will jeopardize the impact of the work of the programs and endanger the achievement of many critical global goals, said Dr Mane, former President and CEO of Pathfinder International.

In the case of merging UNFPA with UN Women, she pointed out, the argument has been made that merging the mandates of advancing gender equality as a whole, with strengthening reproductive health and rights of women, could in fact benefit women.

In theory this sounds great but the reality of the context and history of women’s issues calls that assumption into question.

In a political context in which Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) issues are deeply contested and even opposed by some Member States, UNFPA’s work on those issues could be greatly diluted through the merger.

Prior commitments made by countries especially to SRHR risk receiving lower priority, in favor of some more politically acceptable though important areas that UN Women focuses on, such as women’s economic empowerment.

Also, a merger does not guarantee that the new merged organization would get anywhere close to the equivalent of what UNFPA and UN Women currently receive in resources, she warned.

The merger could result in deep cuts to resources assigned to gender issues overall, thereby depriving countries of the needed support on these issues, at a cost that ignores the laudable reasons why these agencies and programs were created as separate entities.

This is definitely a wake-up call to the two agencies to develop more strategic and effective ways to streamline and coordinate their work in ways that do not slow the progress made on issues that are central to gender equality and women, while also working on decentralizing their programs but the planned solution of merger is likely to be severely damaging for women and their status.

Speaking in an unofficial and personal capacity, Shihana Mohamed, a founding member and Coordinator of the United Nations Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (UN-ANDI), told IPS: UN Women was established to be a force multiplier—mainstreaming women’s rights across peace building, development, and human rights.

Yet today, she pointed out, it faces chronic underfunding, limited political influence, and a shrinking mandate.

“As a gender equality advocate, I fear that the potential merger of UN Women with UNFPA under the UN80 reform agenda could further dilute the UN Women’s distinct mandate”.

“If the merger is rushed or imposed from the top, decades of institutional knowledge, technical expertise, and trusted partnerships— built separately by UN Women and UNFPA—could be lost.”

It also risks sidelining UN Women’s policy leadership, weakening its accountability role, and shifting resources from structural change to service delivery. In short, it could turn a transformative agenda into a technocratic one, she argued.

Any restructuring must preserve UN Women’s distinct mandate. Member States must increase core funding for UN Women and support its integration across all UN agencies. Political backing must match rhetorical support, she said.

“The creation of UN Women was the culmination of years of negotiations among Member States and advocacy by the global women’s movement. Thus, the UN80 Task Force and other reform bodies must engage openly with all stakeholders”.

“ I also emphasize the need for meaningful consultation with feminist movements before making structural changes as they are the watchdogs and visionaries of global gender justice.

Decisions affecting UN Women’s future must be transparent, inclusive, and grounded in human rights—not just cost-efficiency,” said Mohamed, a US Public Voices Fellow with the OPED Project and Equality Now on Advancing the Rights of Women and Girls.

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