CIVICUS remains deeply concerned about the outcome of the UN budget negotiations in New York.
The 2026 UN budget endorses cuts that heavily and disproportionately affects human rights. It severely hampers the UN’s ability to fully deliver its human rights commitments and mandates, advance investigations into human rights violations, and adequately respond to new and emerging crises.
The budget cuts are particularly alarming at a time when some of the most egregious violations of human rights including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are taking place. The action will result in the loss of over 110 staff posts at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). This capacity reduction risks weakening the UN’s capacity to collect evidence, coordinate public information programmes, protect civic space and civil society resilience on the ground, and support States in building effective human rights protection systems.
Given the current severe funding shortages for human rights organisations, implications may be severe for civil society worldwide, especially in the Global South and grassroots contexts. Protection and tools for human rights defenders, civil society actors, and the communities they serve may be undermined. 73 per cent of the world’s population live in countries with severely repressed civic space.
Amid a growing number of governments trampling international human rights law, UN system-wide human rights actors and activities need to be strengthened, not weakened. Budget decisions that deprioritise human rights create ripple effects that undermine basic protections for human rights and civic space. This cut backs go against commitments of the UN and its Member States to maintain balance across the system. It weakens international community’s ability to prevent violations and ensure accountability.
Weakening the OHCHR’s steering functions further delegitimises the human rights pillar at a time when the Office is already operating in survival mode. Its essential work had been cut back in several countries due to financial shortfalls in 2025 and the loss of around 300 staff. Proposals to strengthen capacities across its regional offices had also been rejected, undermining overall. Reduced monitoring of human rights and civic space will undermine evidence-based policy debates. Fewer country visits by Special Procedures and fact-finding missions will disproportionately affect those who are marginalised or most affected, for whom these mechanisms are often the only avenues to seek redress. Slower treaty body reviews will worsen impunity for non-compliance with international human rights standards.
We call on a bold shift towards people-centered and preventive approaches that better integrate human rights agendas into UN programming and budgeting. The recently launched Group of Friends of Global Governance by a group of States including current Human Rights Council members have proposed further defunding of the human rights pillar. We call for States committed to human rights to counterbalance this attack on fundamental rights through forming a such a group should reaffirm an unequivocal commitment to the promotion and realisation of all human rights and advocate for equity across all UN pillars. Member States must safeguard the full capacity of the UN’s human rights machinery, including the OHCHR, to ensure the protection, promotion, and realisation of all human rights worldwide.