page_title: United Nations Human Rights Council
section_title: Saudi Arabia
hierarchical_section_title: United Nations Human Rights Council / Candidacy issues / Saudi Arabia
context_page_description: The United Nations Human Rights Council is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The UNHRC has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. The headquarters of UNHRC is in Geneva, Switzerland.
  The UNHRC investigates allegations of breaches of human rights in United Nations member states, and addresses important thematic human rights issues such as freedom of association and assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of belief and religion, women's rights, LGBT rights, and the rights of racial and ethnic minorities.
  The UNHRC was established by the UN General Assembly on 15 March 2006 to replace the UN Commission on Human Rights that had been strongly criticised for allowing countries with poor human rights records to be members. The UNHRC works closely with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and engages the UN's special procedures.
context_section_description: In September 2015, Faisal bin Hassan Trad, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, was elected Chair of the UNHRC Advisory Committee, the panel that appoints independent experts. UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said: "It is scandalous that the UN chose a country that has beheaded more people this year [2015] than ISIS to be head of a key human rights panel. Petro-dollars and politics have trumped human rights." Saudi Arabia also shut down criticism, during the UN meeting. In January 2016, Saudi Arabia executed the prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr who had called for free elections in Saudi Arabia.
  In September 2017, US President Donald Trump said that 'it is an "embarrassment" that there are countries on the UN human rights panel that have themselves committed atrocities', but not naming any particular country.
caption: Saudi Arabian-led airstrikes in Yemen, June 2015. Saudi Arabia is operating without a UN mandate.[138]
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