Every four-and-a-half years, on a revolving basis, each of the 193 member countries of the United Nations submits a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council on its domestic human rights record under international standards.

U.N. Secretariat agencies, domestic civil society organizations, whether or not accredited by the U.N., as well as accredited international organizations, also submit statements and recommendations, and those are discussed in an “interactive dialogue” between all UN member states and the country under review.

We are now in the fourth cycle of review of the 193 UN members. And for the first time, one country — the United States — has refused to submit a national report or participate in the human rights dialogue.

This unprecedented refusal to participate in the UN’s Universal Periodic Review procedure was quietly announced on the eve of the U.S. Labor Day weekend. It has attracted little notice in the U.S., but it represents an extraordinary undermining of human rights accountability and evasion of any international scrutiny of the U.S. human right record.

Attempting to justify the U.S. refusal to participate, an official claimed it was........

© The Hill