A group of forty states according to a report of the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) has issued a strong appeal to protect the UN’s human rights pillar from disproportionate funding cuts proposed in the UN Secretary-General’s revised 2026 budget.
The joint statement, delivered on 8 December 2025 by Chile during a preparatory meeting of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, highlights the potential damage of reducing the Office of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights’ (OHCHR) budget by 15 percent. This cut would have “concrete and far-reaching implications” and weaken “mandate delivery across thematic and country situations, affecting every region and every category of rights,” the document says.
According to ISHR, the UN’s human rights work “remains chronically underfunded, historically accounting for only 3-7% of the UN’s regular budget, and less than 1% of the UN’s total expenses when including voluntary donations.” The organization in Geneva highlights that the proposed cuts of 15 percent nonetheless are higher than those proposed for the UN’s development pillar which amount to 11.7%.
“Given chronic underfunding and human-resources intensive mandates, even cutting all pillars by the same percentage would translate into a significantly greater loss of capacity for OHCHR and all human rights mechanisms”, the human rights group noted. The same point was made in the joint statement of forty states.
“More than any other pillar of the UN, the human rights system draws on and leverages the very substantial pro bono expertise and experience of hundreds of independent human rights experts. Cuts to the human rights pillar will substantially reduce the UN’s capacity to access and leverage this substantial in-kind contribution”, ISHR warns.
In November, a group of 25 human rights groups led by ISHR in a joint letter warned, among other things, that the UN’s human rights pillar “should be safeguarded from any further UN budget and spending cuts.”