Argentinian President Javier Milei Accuses UN of Human Rights Hypocrisies

Argentina's President Javier Milei addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York, U.S., Sept. 24, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Segar

Argentinian President Javier Milei, in his first U.N. speech, accused the international organization of human rights hypocrisies and enabling authoritarian regimes.

“I’m here to warn you that we are at the end of a cycle, the collectivism and moral posturing of the woke agenda have collided with reality,” Milei told the United Nations on Sept. 24 in New York City.

Milei specifically criticized the Human Rights Council for granting membership to countries such as Cuba and Venezuela, both of which he said have poor human rights records.

‘Bloody Dictatorships’

“In this very house, which claims to defend human rights, we have allowed access to the Human Rights Council to bloody dictatorships such as Cuba and Venezuela, without the slightest reproach,” he said.

Both countries have served multiple terms on the council despite repeated international criticism of their domestic human rights practices.

Cuba, a one-party socialist state led by the Communist Party of Cuba, is currently a member of the council alongside nations such as Burundi and China, both of which have also faced international scrutiny over their human rights practices.

Milei also turned his attention to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, a U.N. body tasked with monitoring progress on women’s rights globally.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan have been a part of international conversations about women’s rights despite that they have policies that punish women for violating strict dress codes or otherwise limit their freedoms.

“In this very House, which claims to defend women’s rights, we have allowed access to the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women to countries that punish their women for showing their skin,” Milei said.

Then-presidential candidate Javier Milei lifts a chainsaw during a campaign rally in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Sept. 25, 2023. Tomas Cuesta/Getty Images

The Epoch Times contacted the U.N. for comment but didn’t receive a reply by publication time.

The body states on its website that “the idea that all human beings—regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status—are entitled to human rights is built into the foundation of the United Nations.”

It says it works to “mainstream human rights” within the U.N. system and collaborates closely with governments in the field to identify, highlight, and develop responses to human rights challenges.

For example, earlier this year, the U.N. human rights office said that China still has “many problematic laws and policies” in Xinjiang, two years after it reported serious violations by the Chinese Communist Party against the Uyghur people.

Milei

Milei, a self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist, was inaugurated as Argentina’s president last year after defeating Sergio Massa, economy minister for Alberto Fernández’s socialist administration, with a promise to tackle the country’s inflationary economy by dollarizing the peso and minimizing government spending.

Six million people work in the private sector and pay taxes to maintain 20 million public workers and pensioners in Argentina, according to the Foundation for Economic Education. Since his win, Milei has announced plans to lay off at least an estimated 70,000 state employees.

Milei said the U.N. has abandoned its founding purpose and that it “was born out of the horror of the bloodiest war in global history, with the primary goal of ensuring that it would never happen again.”

However it has now “transformed into a multi-tentacled leviathan that purports to decide not only what each nation state should do but also how all citizens of the world should live,” he said.

2030 Agenda

In his U.N. speech, Milei also took aim at the 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a global initiative for sustainable economic growth and environmental protection.

Some of the U.N. literature supporting SDGs calls for an equitable reduction in the scale of production. The language used reflects “degrowth,” a formerly radical theory that focuses on shrinking economies in order to use less of the world’s resources.

He said that although this is “well-intentioned in its goals” it is “nothing more than a supranational government program with a socialist slant.”

“If the 2030 agenda failed, as its own promoters acknowledge, the answer should be to ask ourselves if it was not an ill-conceived program to begin with,” he said.

Milei said that his own country, Argentina, which “is undergoing a profound process of change at the present, has decided to embrace the ideas of freedom.”

“Those ideas that say that all citizens are born free and equal before the law, that we have inalienable rights granted by the creator, among which are the right to life, liberty, and property,” he said.

“Argentina will not support any policy that implies the restriction of individual freedoms, of commerce, nor the violation of the natural rights of individuals.”

At a special address at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2024, in Davos, Switzerland, Milei said: “Do not be intimidated by the political caste or by parasites who live off the state.

“Do not surrender to a political class that only wants to stay in power and retain its privileges. You are social benefactors. You are heroes. You are the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we’ve ever seen.”

Reuters contributed to this report.