(TibetanReview.net, Jul25’26) – Austrian lawyer Volker Türk, whose term ends on Oct 11, has on Jul 24 won a second four-year term as the UN’s top human rights officer despite US, Russian and Israeli opposition. China supported renewing his term, alongside nations like Iran, Cuba, and North Korea.
The vote in the 193-member UN General Assembly to reappoint Türk was 144-10, with 13 abstentions. Türk is the first UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to seek a second term since the position was established in 1993.
While he got strong support, the votes and speeches leading up to his confirmation reflected concern that Secretary-General António Guterres quietly nominated Türk this month after private consultations, with no public discussion, as the UN chief nears the end of his own 10-year tenure, noted the AP Jul 25.
Guterres, whose term expires in Dec 2026, sent letters to regional groups at the UN earlier this month informing them of his intention to reappoint Turk, and held the vote just weeks later, reported aljazeera.com Jul 25.
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Türk has been outspoken on the human rights situation in Tibet under Chinese rule at least on previous occasions.
The exile Tibetan establishment said that on Jun 15, while delivering his Global Update at the opening of the 62nd UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Türk criticized and called for the repeal of China’s new Ethnic Unity and progress Promotion Law which was scheduled to come into force on Jul 1.
However, a truncated video recording of his speech posted on his official website (https://media.un.org/unifeed/en/asset/d358/d3587919) on the same day not only did not make any mention of this portion of his speech, but it also did not contain any reference to China.
Türk’s previous criticisms of China’s human rights violations in Tibet included those in his global assessment report in Jun 2025, and his red-flagging of China’s so-called ethnic unity law in Mar 2026.
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Türk has said he was “deeply grateful” to be re-elected. “Human rights are the antidote to today’s turbulence and defeatism. I will give my all for the rights of everyone, everywhere,” he wrote in a social media post.
The European Union’s delegation at the UN welcomed Türk’s reappointment, saying it was looking forward to working with his office to “promote and protect human rights worldwide”, said the aljazeera.com report.
But US deputy ambassador Jeff Bartos warned before the vote that reappointing Türk would prove that the General Assembly “is dysfunctional” and that the vote “was quietly shoved onto the agenda at the last minute to bypass meaningful review,” said the AP report
Bartos has said, “The United States will immediately reassess our engagement, participation and funding.”
Also before the vote, Israel’s Foreign Ministry called Guterres’ action to get a second term for Türk the UN secretary-general’s “latest moral failure,” saying on social media that the choice should be left to his successor.
“After years of bias against Israel, the answer is accountability — not rewriting the rules,” the ministry has said.
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As human rights chief, Türk, a longtime UN functionary who worked for Guterres at United Nations headquarters in New York, has expressed concerns on issues in China as diverse as the fate of detained individuals — like artist Gao Zhen, lawyer Yu Wensheng and media mogul Jimmy Lai — and counterterrorism and assimilation practices that affect ethnic minorities including the Uyghurs in the regions of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet, said the AP report.
However, former head of Human Rights Watch Ken Roth has said: “The biggest stain on Türk’s reputation is his utter abandonment of the Uyghurs.”
The report cited critics as insisting he could have done more to publicly follow up on a report issued by his predecessor, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, that said China’s discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang may amount to crimes against humanity.
Türk’s job as the UN rights chief, by its nature, is tricky: It requires speaking out against rights violations by the governments of the countries that make up the membership of the world body, noted the AP report.