By Javier Surasky
The UN80
initiative is supposedly in its initial stage, and the Secretary-General
insists that the Member States will make decisions. However, the UN’s financial
crisis—combined with leaks about UN80, the lack of clear information on the
evolution of the process, the absence of defined success objectives, and its
measures—is already causing the United Nations system to respond to budget cuts
in a disorderly and chaotic manner.
Many UN
entities have already begun staff reductions or are failing to pay severance
packages properly. But the note sent by the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights (OHCHR) to the Human Rights Council goes beyond all previous
warnings and shows, for the first time, clearly that a cutback affecting UN
activities is underway, linked to the UN80 process, and that it has a clear
political intention and direction.
Let’s take
a look. The letter in question, dated 16 June 2025, outlines a series of
activities under the Human Rights Council's responsibility for 2025 and 2026, considered
either impossible to carry out or will be carried out only partially due to
the Organization’s financial and liquidity crisis.
There is no explanation in the letter as to how or why the activities to be cut were selected. But the most interesting part comes when looking at those activities deemed “cancelled,” a list divided into two parts (see Human Rights Council document A/HRC/DEC/59/115).
- Thirteen planned activities are marked as “not feasible.”
- Five planned activities are considered “partially feasible.”
Among the
“not feasible” activities, we find that four are directly related to gender
equality, making it the most affected issue. These activities, mandated by
Human Rights Council resolutions, are:
- Human Rights Council resolution
56/11 on menstrual hygiene management, human rights and gender equality.
- Human Rights Council resolution
56/21 on accelerating progress towards preventing adolescent girls’
pregnancy.
- Human Rights Council resolution
56/22 on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and
girls.
- Human Rights Council resolution
57/18 on the elimination of domestic violence.
On the
other hand, we find a set of activities directly related to AI and new
technologies:
- Human Rights Council resolution
56/6 on the safety of the child in the digital environment.
- Human Rights Council resolution
57/6 on countering cyberbullying (primarily aimed at protecting older
persons).
- Human Rights Council resolution
57/29 on the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the
Internet.
Two other
activities concern topics of maximum “sensitivity” for certain political
currents that are gaining power in various States and, from there, project an
agenda of restricting rights at the multilateral level. We highlight two
of them:
- Human Rights Council resolution
56/10 on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of
peaceful protests.
- Human Rights Council
resolutions 27/21 and 58/3 on the negative impact of unilateral coercive
measures on the enjoyment of human rights.
Along these
lines, among the activities that will have to be “partially cancelled,” we find
those resulting from:
- Human Rights Council resolution
56/7 on freedom of opinion and expression.
- Human Rights Council
resolutions 37/24 and 52/14 on the promotion and protection of human
rights and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development.
- Human Rights Council resolution
55/9 on the right to work.
- Human Rights Council resolution
57/13 on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation.
It is
not hard to read between the lines the direction of this “cutback,” which lacks clear justification,
provides no transparency, and once again undermines the credibility of the UN
by damaging one of the bodies essential to the Human Rights pillar—one that
UN80 claims to treat on an equal footing with the other pillars of the United
Nations.
UN80 seems
to confirm an agenda purely tied to financial cuts, devoid of any transparency
and poorly articulated, now tinged with an “anti-woke” scent—one that
panders to a minority not known for its commitment to multilateralism or
international law.
The UN
is putting itself in check. The mere idea that the drive for human rights could
be “negotiable” within the “reform” process is repugnant.