In a final address to the United Nations General Assembly, Anaïs Marin, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus, reported a marked decline in Belarus’s engagement with the UN on human rights issues, stating that cooperation between Belarus and the UN has now reached an unprecedented low.
Reflecting on her six-year tenure, Marin described a stark and consistent deterioration in the human rights climate within Belarus. “Over these years, human rights have suffered immensely in Belarus, and the government’s cooperation with the United Nations has diminished in tandem,” she noted. Her report outlines Belarus’s disregard for numerous UN recommendations, some dating as far back as the 1990s, to improve fundamental human rights practices. These ignored recommendations include the establishment of a national human rights institution, abolition of the death penalty, safeguards for fair trials, an end to arbitrary detentions and torture, and protections for freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
Marin’s report also highlights a disturbing trend in Belarus’s international conduct, noting that since the disputed 2020 presidential election, the government has intensified repression and responded defiantly to global human rights scrutiny. Belarus’s withdrawal from specific human rights treaties—such as its renouncement of the first Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights—marks a pronounced shift away from international cooperation.
While Belarus claims ongoing collaboration with UN human rights bodies, Marin’s report suggests that such cooperation lacks sincerity and is selective in nature. For instance, during its most recent Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in 2020, Belarus reportedly classified many recommendations as “already implemented,” despite repeated failures to address these issues meaningfully over multiple UPR cycles.
In addition to ignoring recommendations from UN bodies, Belarus has disregarded numerous recommendations from the International Labour Organization over the past two decades, particularly around labour rights protections and the prevention of workplace abuses. Marin also pointed to recent actions by participating states in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which has launched multiple procedures to address the escalating human rights abuses in Belarus.
Concluding her statement, Marin emphasized that the Special Rapporteur’s mandate remains crucial in shedding light on Belarus’s human rights issues, which have been suppressed for decades. She expressed hope that her successor will continue advocating for the protection and advancement of human rights in Belarus, ensuring that the situation remains in global focus despite the Belarusian government’s withdrawal from international obligations.