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The “most obvious reason is that authoritarian regimes are happy with the status quo.” They seek council seats to protect their human rights efforts and those of their allies from scrutiny, she said.Countries such as Russia, China, Cuba and Egypt “benefit from making a mockery of the Human Rights Council. So it’s no surprise that they openly resisted our efforts to reform it,” Haley said.The US ambassador to the UN said that what was surprising was the pro-human rights countries and non-governmental groups that also refused to work with the US to reform the UNHRC, even as they acknowledged its flaws. Those NGOs “came out publicly against our reforms telling other countries to vote against us. Groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch sided with Russia and China on a critical human rights issue,” Haley said.They were afraid that countries who are known human rights abusers would push for retaliatory “hostile amendments” in the UN General Assembly, she said.She charged that these NGOs also feared losing “institutional comforts” at the UN.“They have big staffs and lots of relationships with the UN bureaucracy. Change is threatening to them,” Haley said.Pro-human rights countries told the US privately that they too were “disgusted with countries like Cuba and Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and the Congo serving on the Council, as well as the constant attacks on Israel.”“But after months of agreeing with us on all of the flaws of the Human Rights Council, they would not take a stand unless it was behind closed doors, and out of public view,” Haley said.The US remains committed to fighting on behalf of human rights both globally and inside the UN, Haley said. “We just won’t do it inside a Council that consistently fails the cause of human rights.”“Our withdrawal from the Human Rights Council does not mean that we give up our fight for reform. On the contrary, any country willing to work with us to reshape the Council need only ask,” she said. “Fixing the institutional flaws of the Human Rights Council was, is, and will remain one of the biggest priorities at the UN.”She was particularly moved, she said, by the mothers and children she met in refugees camps in Ethiopia, Congo, Turkey and Jordan.“As long as we have a voice, we must use it to advocate for these mothers and children. I will use my voice. Not just because I am a mother. Not just because I am an ambassador. But because I am an American. And America can no more abandon the cause of human rights than abandon itself,” Haley said.