At this moment when a new year begins, humankind is full of hope and expectations of the future, yet reflecting on the lessons of last year.

In the last year as well, the international society was so much concerned by specific forces who found fault with other countries at their own pleasure and dishonestly attempted to bring them into the human rights dock.

The ringleader who turned the international human rights arena – the room for promoting dialogue and cooperation between countries – into a venue for confrontation is none other than the United States.

At the UN Human Rights Council and the third Committee of the UNGA Session and other major meetings devoted to human rights last year, the U.S. tried to brand independent countries as human rights violators and anti-humanity criminal states by making a big fuss about “dismal human situation” and “wide-ranging violations of human rights” in those countries.

In particular, at the 51 st Session of the UNHRC last October, the U.S. presented a draft resolution on regularizing the discussions of China Xinjiang issue from the 52 nd Session in 2023 and desperately tried to pass it by mustering some Western countries.

However, the draft was ultimately turned down, for a number of developing countries strongly opposed to such attempt of the U.S. as interference in internal affairs of China.

Meanwhile, the U.S. did not hesitate to railroad following forces into adopting “human rights resolutions” which had seriously distorted and fabricated the human rights situations in individual countries.

Anti-imperialist independent countries like China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Belarus strongly condemned and rejected such double-standard and high-handed behavior as political provocation in pursuit of the aim to interfere in internal affairs and topple the system of those countries.

In December, the U.S. attempt to convene at the UNSC an official meeting to discuss so-called DPRK “human rights issue” met a rebuff after facing opposition from a majority of Security Council members.

The U.S. attempt to convene such a meeting has failed for 5 years in a row. This fact serves as a good judgment of the international society on the illegality and impropriety of the “human rights” racket against the DPRK.

The above-mentioned facts show that the time is long gone when the U.S. indulged itself in high-handedness and arbitrariness posing as a “human rights judge” in the international arena.

The U.S. fabricates “human rights violation” and “human rights abuse” of other countries which do not exist and raises much ado about them in public. But what it is doing behind the scenes only arouses surging resentment and contempt of the world people.

For instance, the crimes committed in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria in the new century are the gravest crimes of human rights violation that deserve to be placed in the dock of human rights as often as it can be.

The review process on the U.S. implementation of “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination”, which took place at the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in August last year, turned into a venue for impeachment where the foul crimes of human rights violation committed by the U.S. against the non-whites were indicted fully before the world.

Many experts participating in the review unanimously and sharply denounced the U.S. saying that, while being indifferent to the deep-rooted racial discrimination in its own country, the U.S. is bent on inventing lies and groundless rumors about human rights situation in other countries in order to use them as a means of hegemony-maintaining policy and political tricks.

Due to its own incurable dismal human rights situation and bloody atrocities it committed abroad, the U.S. has long been disqualified for arguing about human rights issues. Therefore, its conduct of imprudently labeling other countries and clinging to groundless criticism could never be accepted in today’s bright world.

The U.S. should clearly see the stern eyes of the broad spectrum of the international society and put an end to the anachronistic behavior of “human right judge”. And it should sit in the dock of human rights, honestly reflecting on the past and present crimes.

Jang Chol Ho

Researcher of Korean Association for Human Rights Studies