In a quiet move preempting any debate, Secretary-General António Guterres is asking the UN General Assembly to decide as early as Friday on an unprecedented bid to grant High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk a second four-year term, as first revealed yesterday by UN Watch.
Former Human Rights Watch chief Kenneth Roth has joined the criticism, warning against the “clandestine” reappointment. “Turk has been a disaster,” Roth wrote, noting that unlike his predecessor’s powerful report on China’s persecution of the Uyghurs, Türk “hasn’t voiced a single word of public criticism.” He called the post “far too important… to be refilled in this clandestine manner without proper debate” and urged governments to insist on “a public airing of his mediocrity before voting,” rather than allowing a rushed decision while attention is focused elsewhere.
Türk, an Austrian diplomat and longtime Guterres aide who took office in October 2022, is seeking to become the first rights chief to ever secure a four-year renewal. His current term expires later this year. Guterres, whose own mandate ends Dec. 31, is pushing the lengthy reappointment before his successor takes over.
UN Watch, the Geneva-based monitoring group, called on democracies to reject the move. It cited Türk’s pattern of selective silence on major abusers alongside disproportionate criticism of democracies.
According to UN Watch’s report, which examined his record over two years:
• Türk condemned the United States more times than he condemned China, North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Qatar combined.
• He remained completely silent on gross and systematic violations by the regimes of Cuba, North Korea, Algeria, Eritrea, Mauritania, Lebanon and Qatar, while freely criticizing democracies including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Italy and France.
• Of his limited criticisms of China, none mentioned the mass imprisonment of more than one million Uyghurs.
• He issued 58 condemnations of Israel - 49 related to the Hamas-Israel war - more than his combined statements on Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar. By contrast, he criticized Venezuela’s Maduro regime only four times.
• He stayed silent when serial abusers including China, Cuba, Qatar and Eritrea were elected to the Human Rights Council; when Iran was named chair of the council’s Social Forum; and when Nicaragua was elected to the UN committee overseeing thousands of UN-accredited NGOs.
“China, Iran, Cuba and North Korea want Volker Türk renewed for an unprecedented four more years as UN high commissioner for human rights. The free world should vote no,” UN Watch said in a statement Wednesday.
Took Sides During Iran War
Türk has also shown a pattern of softness toward Tehran’s rulers. Instead of calling them out, he repeatedly posed for photos with Iranian regime officials accused of atrocities.
When the United States and Israel conducted airstrikes on Iranian regime targets in February 2026, Türk immediately “deplored” the U.S. and Israeli military strikes on Iran. Though he also deplored Iran’s actions, he qualified these as “retaliatory,” lending legitimacy to the regime’s missile attacks on its neighbors.
Türk ignored Iran’s aggression across the region, making no mention of the IRGC’s sponsorship of the Houthis in Yemen, militias in Iraq and Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank and Gaza. Nor did he mention Iran’s decades-long campaign against American and Israeli targets worldwide and against its own dissidents abroad, including assassinations and murder-for-hire plots on European and American soil.
Though U.S. and Israeli forces struck some 15,000 regime targets, Türk repeatedly tried to portray their campaign as focused on civilians. “It is civilians who end up paying the ultimate price,” he said. In another statement he added that he was “deeply shocked by the impacts of the widespread hostilities on civilians and civilian infrastructure.”
By contrast, when the Iranian regime began violently suppressing protesters on December 28, 2025, Türk remained silent for 12 days. He said nothing when the government imposed a nationwide internet shutdown in advance of the massacre. Türk issued a statement only on January 9, 2026-after the killings had already begun-saying he was merely “deeply disturbed” by “reports” of “violence during nationwide protests,” including “reported deaths and destruction of property,” and failing to condemn the government-sanctioned killings.
Guterres Rushing to Preempt His Successor
Hillel Neuer, the group’s executive director, said Guterres was rushing to “entrench his protégé” before leaving office.
Neuer contrasted Türk’s willingness to seek renewal with the stance of his predecessor Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein in 2018. Zeid declined a second term, stating: “I have decided not to seek a second four-year term. To do so, in the current geopolitical context, might involve bending a knee in supplication; muting a statement of advocacy; lessening the independence and integrity of my voice.”
“Why isn’t Türk saying the same?” Neuer asked Thursday. The decision to pursue another term, he argued, signals that Türk is prepared to mute criticism of powerful abusers to secure the position - precisely what Zeid refused to do.
“Volker Türk is not fit to serve as the top authority on human rights on account of his documented record of placing political considerations over human rights, and turning a blind eye to hundreds of millions of victims of the world’s most oppressive regimes,” Neuer said.
“Democracies should stop lending legitimacy to a UN human rights system that has become corrupted by selectivity, politicization, and the dangerous domination of dictatorships.”
The High Commissioner is appointed by the secretary-general and approved by the General Assembly for a fixed four-year term, renewable once. UN Watch urged member states to reject the renewal.
