As the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) reports, United Nations member states adopted the organisation’s 2026 regular budget in the final days of 2025, marking a significant moment in the ongoing UN80 reform process. While the overhaul is supposed to make the UN leaner and more efficient in response to financial and political pressure primarily from the United States, the budget decision has drawn sharp criticism for its disproportionate impact on human rights funding, with civil society organisations warning it will weaken the UN’s ability to respond to global abuses.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the UN’s main human rights body, will see 117 posts cut under the new budget. This represents a deeper reduction than initially proposed by Secretary‑General António Guterres. His original proposals already called for a 15% reduction in human rights spending, higher than cuts to the development and peace and security pillars (11.7% and 14.2% respectively). According to ISHR, the UN’s specialized budgeting body, the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), ended up recommending cuts of 16.7% which were then adopted.
The cuts are a serious blow to the global human rights system
ISHR argues the decision will undermine the UN’s ability to investigate abuses and protect vulnerable communities. The organizations’s Programme Manager Raphael Viana David warned that the cuts “make us all less safe” while “human rights crises continue to grow globally.” The cuts are a “a serious blow to the global human rights system”, he said.
The UN’s decision follows a divisive debate in the organization’s Fifth Committee in New York, where a bloc of countries including China and Russia pushed for even more drastic reductions. These included proposals to entirely defund up to 18 Human Rights Council mandates, many of them tied to investigations into rights violations in authoritarian states. While these extreme proposals were ultimately rejected by a broad majority, ISHR emphasize they shifted the negotiations toward the ACABQ’s more conservative package.
According to ISHR, a coalition led by the EU, UK, Canada, Mexico, Norway, Australia, and others sought to preserve human rights funding in line with the Secretary-General’s original proposal. Separate initiatives from Latin American countries also aimed to secure financing. But efforts to defend funding were ultimately undermined by the political pressure exerted by states like China, whose role in budget negotiations reflects a broader trend of challenging the UN’s human rights mechanisms.
New Chinese-led Group of Friends represents an attack on fundamental rights
CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organisations, warned that the cuts will have direct consequences for people on the ground. Reduced UN capacity, they argue, weakens protection for activists, communities, and independent groups working to defend basic freedoms, especially in countries where human rights work is seen as a threat.
CIVICUS in particular noted pressure from the members of a new Chinese-led “Group of Friends on Global Governance.” In a statement published in December, the group, which includes the world’s most repressive regimes, claimed it was committed to “sovereign equality, international rule of law, multilateralism, a people-centered approach and taking real actions.” According to CIVICUS, however, the group represents an “attack on fundamental rights” through its efforts to defund the UN’s human rights work.
The UN’s human rights office is already under serious strain, with OHCHR head Volker Türk describing the situation as “survival mode” in late 2025. The latest round of cuts could push the system closer to collapse.