The Foreign Ministry’s head of policy analysis and development, Siswo Pramono, said the US withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) did not mean multilateralism was dead.

“It’s in the US’ prerogative, but we know that the US has long preferred bilateral to multilateral engagement, which is different than Indonesia, which is a champion for multilateralism,” Siswo said.

The US withdrew from the council on Tuesday, saying it was “hypocritical and self-serving”, over what it called a chronic bias against Israel and a lack of reform.

“We recognize that in the Trump era, the US tends to be more focused on bilateralism, such as by pulling out of the Paris Accord and withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council, which are important for the world, but maybe the world has to adapt to multilateralism without the US,” Siswo said. He said Indonesia used both bilateral and multilateral channels for promoting human rights as mandated by the constitution, which specifically mentions Indonesia must “uphold world peace”.

Siswo said the purpose of the council was to involve every country in upholding universal human rights because they are part of the universal declaration of human rights. He said the implementation would always depend upon regional and local cultures, which is why the council maintained representation from every region.

“The purpose of the UN Human Rights Council is to help countries achieve universal human rights standards through capacity building, dialogue and cooperation,” he said, adding that such ideals would not be achieved if only countries with “perfect” or clean track records were allowed to sit on the council. He said Trump’s decision did not represent all countries’ interests, even those of many of its allies, such as the European countries that disagreed with some of Trump’s decisions, particularly in moving the US’ Israeli embassy to Jerusalem.

“The world still believes in multilateralism. We cannot force the US to stay if it doesn’t believe in it, but we have to keep on going, with or without the US,” he said.

Amnesty International Indonesia director Usman Hamid said Indonesia could leverage its new position as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council to deal with autocratic leaders like Trump, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

“The multilateralism approach to resolving human rights issues will face a big challenge, because the US would potentially use a unilateral approach,” he said. “We need new leader in facing human right issues as the counter voice and counter power to the large-scale rights violations.”

Popular

Kadin urges stability after Constitutional Court ruling

Jokowi says transition to new government to begi

BCA loan disbursement surges 17.1 percent yoy in first quarter