The United Nations warned Monday that human rights work globally is fighting for its survival, as funding woes and rollbacks of accountability laws limit the ability to address widespread abuses.
UN rights chief Volker Turk said his office, which is among a slew of international organisations hit by a global funding crisis, was “on its knees”.
“The entire human rights ecosystem is in survival mode,” he told a meeting of the UN’s business and human rights forum in Geneva.
The UN as a whole is mulling reforms, including a 15-percent cut across its 2026 budget, to tackle chronic liquidity problems exacerbated by US President Donald Trump’s policies.
The United States — the UN’s biggest contributor — paused funding after Trump returned to power in January.
Funding for the UN’s human rights work has long been chronically underfunded, and the cuts now being discussed could take a particularly heavy toll on the UN rights office.
The agency has received just 73 percent of member states’ promised regular budget contributions for 2025, leaving $67 million unpaid, after already seeing tens of millions of dollars in US voluntary funds evaporate this year.
Turk said Monday that he welcomed “creative, innovative ideas on how to increase support for us”.
“For example, payroll-giving initiatives are one practical tool for companies to help sustain the institutions that protect us all,” he said.
Beyond financial support, he said his office was working to create a “global alliance for human rights”.
This, he said, should be “a cross-regional coalition of States, businesses, civil society, philanthropists, and others (aimed to) put human rights at the heart of public and political life”.
Turk insisted on the need to shore up rights protections in a world facing towering challenges.
He highlighted in particular violations linked to the private sector.
He slammed “unacceptable” attacks against “courageous human rights defenders shining a light on business-related abuses”.
He decried that “states in some regions are watering down laws requiring corporate respect for human rights”, warning this “could have ripple effects around the world”.
Turk drew attention to the pushback against so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies around the world.
Such policies, which have come under particularly harsh attack in the United States under Trump, “were adopted to address historic and structural discrimination”, he said.
“This is a troubling development; we cannot return to systems that run contrary to equality and justice.”
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© Agence France-Presse
