GENEVA — The United States spurned a UN meeting on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, where its human rights record under President Donald Trump was due to be examined, drawing criticism from rights groups who say violations have surged to levels not seen in decades, Reuters reported. The US left its seat on the stage of the UN meeting empty and the council decided to postpone the event until January.

Source: Reuters via SRN News, Nov 10, 2026

Washington disengaged from the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council last year, citing an anti-Israel bias, and this is the second year in a row that it has skipped its own review — a process that even authoritarian states take part in, Reuters said. The review was originally set for November 2025; the council postponed it in hopes Washington would change course, and it did not.

Source: Reuters via SRN News, Nov 10, 2026

A US State Department spokesperson said participation would imply endorsement of the council's work. 'This irredeemable body makes a mockery of human rights through consistent failures to uphold its own values as it pushes anti-American rhetoric,' the spokesperson said, without responding to allegations about the US record, Reuters reported. The 47-member council has not directly criticised Washington's rights record, but its appointed experts have, such as over migrant deportations; Washington said deportations were carried out in accordance with US immigration law.

Source: Reuters via SRN News, Nov 10, 2026

What the review was meant to examine

The Universal Periodic Review asks all 193 UN member states to submit a rights report every few years; the reports are reviewed by other states, which provide non-binding recommendations. UN documents show countries had planned on Tuesday to raise issues such as abortion and the death penalty, and US and international non-governmental organisations sent nearly 200 UN submissions covering topics from migration to racial discrimination, Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters via SRN News, Nov 10, 2026

'We've seen attacks on fundamental human rights and civil liberties unprecedented in generations,' Jamil Dakwar of the American Civil Liberties Union told reporters in Geneva. 'Enough is enough.' Noor Abdalla, wife of pro-Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was held in immigration detention last year, is among campaigners pressing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk to promptly hold a briefing on the US rights situation even in Washington's absence. 'When the most powerful government in the world is not held accountable, they think that they can do whatever they want,' Abdalla told reporters.

Source: Reuters via SRN News, Nov 10, 2026

Amnesty International USA said the United States now had 'the shameful distinction of becoming the first country to avoid participating in all stages of the UN's Universal Periodic Review peer-review process', noting that no country — even governments accused of grave atrocities — had ever completely absconded from it, and that the council had given the US an extra year to participate. The International Service for Human Rights said civil-society organisations had urged council states and the UN High Commissioner to respond by scheduling a dedicated dialogue at the council's 64th session in March 2027.

Source: Amnesty International USA, Nov 10, 2026; ISHR, Nov 10, 2026

In Trump's first term in office, the US submitted its UPR report, Reuters noted; fourteen countries are due to take part in the review process in Geneva this month. What happens next: the postponed US session is expected in January, campaigners are pressing High Commissioner Volker Turk for a briefing on the US situation in Washington's absence, and civil-society groups want a dedicated dialogue at the council's March 2027 session — while diplomats, by Reuters' account, mostly prefer to leave the door open rather than confront Washington.