GOP-Led House To Take Up Bill Slashing More Than $35 Mil in UN Human Rights Council Funding

The House is taking up legislation that would slash more than $35 million in annual taxpayer funding to the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and its supporting institutions, according to a copy of the bill obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Rep. Chip Roy (R., Texas), a member of the powerful House Budget Committee, introduced the bill on Monday with the backing of six Republican colleagues. It marks the latest effort by the newly installed House to crack down on foreign institutions known for pushing an anti-Israel and anti-American agenda.

Roy is also the architect of newly passed legislation to sanction the International Criminal Court, another U.N.-aligned entity that is seeking to arrest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes. That legislation overwhelmingly passed the House last week, signaling that Speaker Mike Johnson's (R., La.) GOP majority is working swiftly to counter the global anti-Israel movement, a priority shared by the incoming Trump administration.

The No Taxpayer Funding for United Nations Human Rights Council Act would immediately prohibit the United States from sending millions in taxpayer cash to the international body. The United States provided roughly $36 million to the UNHRC and affiliates in 2024, according to funding documents, making America the organization's top patron amid a global campaign to demonize Israel's war effort. The bill additionally bans the federal government from making "voluntary contributions" to the UNHRC, effectively stopping a future administration from skirting the law by allocating funds in a more informal fashion.

The UNHRC has faced Republican criticism since its creation in 2006, culminating in the Trump administration's decision to abandon the body in 2018. Outgoing president Joe Biden rejoined the committee in October 2021, bestowing international legitimacy on an organization that primarily singles out the Jewish state for censure and includes human rights abusers like China.

With President-elect Donald Trump set to reenter the White House next week, his Republican allies are already setting the stage for a diplomatic clash with the UNHRC and other prominent international bodies responsible for stoking anti-Israel outrage.

"The U.N.'s 'Human Rights' Council is a long-running joke," Roy told the Free Beacon. "This body has the audacity to lecture the world about human rights while giving seats to some of the worst abusers in the world—like China, Cuba and Sudan."

The UNHRC, Roy added, "disproportionately attacks our ally Israel as part of the U.N.'s overall leftist crusade against Western Civilization, while letting monstrous and authoritarian regimes like Iran get away with little more than a slap on the wrist by comparison—if that."

Former Trump administration officials expect that Roy's legislation will gain widespread GOP support in the House and galvanize Senate Republicans to follow suit.

"Defunding anti-American, anti-Semitic and pro-CCP U.N. agencies are on the agenda," said Richard Goldberg, who served on the White House National Security Council during Trump’s first stint in office. "The Human Rights Council is certainly one of the first stops."

Goldberg, who reviewed the draft legislation before it was filed, said the bill is "a solid step" toward fully dissolving the UNHRC and erasing its anti-Israel mandate.

The UNHRC faced GOP outrage in September, when it refused to label Hamas as a terrorist organization. Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) in a letter to the council instructed it to explain why it formally recognizes Hamas as a "Palestinian armed group" rather than a terror outfit.

More broadly, the UNHRC and its partners have tapped Iran to serve on several international bodies, appointments that have come in the wake of Tehran's financial support for the October 7 terror attacks on Israel.

The United Nations tapped Iran last year to join its Conference on Disarmament as well as the UNHRC's Social Forum. Iran also won an election to serve as the rapporteur for the U.N. Committee on Disarmament and International Security, an appointment that came amid Tehran's efforts to build a nuclear bomb.

In addition to its anti-Israel agenda, the UNHRC rejected a 2022 bid to hold China accountable for its mass human rights abuses against the Uyghur ethnic minority.

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