UN HRC. File photoMOSCOW, April 16Washington's campaign to expel Russia from the UN Human Rights Council is a theater of absurdity, the United States has repeatedly violated the foundations of humanitarian law and does not itself meet the criteria for membership in the council, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin told RIA Novosti. «The United States, which positions itself as a locomotive of democracy and human rights, in fact, do not even meet the formal criteria for membership in the UN Human Rights Council,” Vershinin said. He noted that out of 12 major international human rights conventions and optional protocols to them, the American side has ratified only five such documents. Despite the declared gender equality, the United States, for example, has not yet acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Other documents include the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. 
The Kremlin commented on the situation with the exclusion of Russia from the UNHRC «And this is not a complete list, but only basic agreements,» the deputy minister stressed. Recently, the US administration has given the green light to only three HRC Special Rapporteurs to visit their country. The rest — and there are dozens of them — are slowed down,» Vershinin said. It's hard not to notice, he added, that the United States is a country where manifestations of racism and racial discrimination have not only not been eliminated in the 21st century, but have become systemic and structural.» And how many times over the past 20 years has Washington acted as an aggressor, unleashing wars at its own discretion in all regions of the world? Did the Americans bear any responsibility for the numerous violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria?” Vershinin noted. Is the UN Human Rights Council worthy of remaining in this body? The theater of the absurd – it’s hard to call this situation any other way,” the deputy minister summed up.
