The United States’ decision to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council and, consequently, from this year’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) marks a worrying retreat from global human rights accountability. Although the announcement did not cite any specific reasons for the withdrawal, it reflects a deeper unwillingness to accept scrutiny under the same universal standards that the US expects of others. A pattern particularly evident during the Trump Administration.

The UPR was established in 2006, when the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 60/251, which created the Human Rights Council and tasked it with conducting periodic reviews of all UN Member States. The reform aimed to correct decades of politicization and selectivity within the UN’s human rights system. Some states had escaped scrutiny altogether, while others were targeted disproportionately. The UPR was designed as a structural response to this imbalance.

In 2008, the UPR held its first review sessions, with its defining feature, universality: all 193 UN Member States are reviewed every four to five years, regardless of their geopolitical or treaty status. The process is built on peer review; states evaluate one another’s records through dialogue, not condemnation.

Each review draws on three sources:

1. A national report prepared by the state under review.
2. A UN compilation summarizing information from treaty bodies and special rapporteurs.
3. Submissions from stakeholders, including civil society, national human rights institutions, and independent experts.

The outcome of each review is a set of recommendations that the state may accept or note, followed by implementation reporting in later cycles. In practice, the UPR relies on reputation, transparency, and peer accountability rather than formal enforcement. The process was created to ensure that all states, regardless of their size or political influence, are held to the same human rights standards. That principle of equal treatment is central to the UPR’s legitimacy, and it is precisely what makes US disengagement so damaging. By stepping away, the US signals that it is unwilling to be evaluated under the same conditions it expects of others.

The US Record and the Break With Tradition

The US has participated in three previous UPR cycles: 2010, 2015, and 2020. Each review drew hundreds of recommendations from other states. Many of these suggestions addressed issues such as racial discrimination, criminal justice, immigration detention, and the failure to implement crucial human rights treaties like the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

While this process often causes defensiveness, it also provides moments of introspection. The State Department’s reports have historically acknowledged challenges and outlined reform efforts, creating at least a nexus between international review and domestic reflection.

By declining to participate in the 2025 cycle, the US not only abandons its prior record of engagement but also undermines a system it helped create. This decision is especially concerning given that it coincides with increasing domestic threats to civil rights, immigration policy, and constitutional freedoms.

The Cost of Withdrawal

For decades, the US has portrayed itself as a promoter and guardian of human rights norms. Participation in the UPR has been one of the few processes that allowed it to model transparency rather than merely demand it from others.

When Washington calls out Beijing for repressing Uyghurs or Israel for their actions against Palestinians, the world listens. But when the US refuses to go through the same kind of review and scrutiny, that authority starts to fail. The credibility required of human rights advocacy depends on a variety of factors, including a state’s willingness to hold itself to the same standards it demands from others. By boycotting the review, the US opens itself to accusations of hypocrisy and undermines its position as a moral authority.

The decision to separate from accountability does not occur alone. The UPR’s legitimacy depends on universal participation. Every state that undergoes review reinforces the norm of shared accountability; every withdrawal weakens it. When a leading democracy like the US refuses to appear before the Human Rights Council, other governments, particularly authoritarian ones, gain an easy excuse to follow. The result could erode one of the few UN mechanisms that applies equally to all states and gradually transform it into a voluntary or politically selective process.

As previously mentioned, the UPR has also been a space for accountability at home. Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch have used the process to draw attention to issues that often get lost in domestic debate, including racial injustice, Indigenous rights, and conditions in immigration detention. Given the political climate the US is facing, where migrants are frequently disappeared into detention centers without due process and families are separated without explanation, outside scrutiny is not a threat but a safeguard. The UPR gives advocates a platform to connect these realities to the country’s broader human rights commitments. Without it, one of the few avenues for meaningful reflection and reform disappears, leaving both domestic advocates and international partners with fewer ways to hold the US to its own standards.

While many argue that the UPR is inherently flawed due to its politicization and non-binding nature, critics misread its function. Since its creation, the UPR was never meant to be a court or a compliance tribunal, but rather an institution whose strength lies in its reputational power and the idea that all states can and should be questioned for their practices.

Accountability as Leadership

The UPR was built on a simple idea: every country, big or small, should be willing to answer for its human rights record. That principle is what makes the system meaningful. When the US steps away from that process, it sends a clear signal that it is unwilling to live up to the same standards it expects of others. The decision does not just damage its reputation; it weakens the very structure of accountability that holds the international system together.

What suffers most are the values that give human rights their strength. Transparency becomes harder to demand, cooperation feels less certain, and the idea of shared responsibility begins to fade. The UPR only works when participation is universal. Once that breaks down, the foundation of equal treatment under international law starts to crack.

If the US truly wants to lead on human rights, it has to be part of the conversation. Rejoining the UPR would not erase its own failings, but it would show that leadership means being willing to listen as well as speak. Accountability has to begin at home.

Leena Alsayab is a student attorney with the International Human Rights Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law.