According to a report from POLITICO on Saturday, the White House blocked the renomination of human rights lawyer Gay McDougall, who had served on the committee since 2015. The White House has not announced why it failed to renominate McDougall, or why it opted not to nominate anyone else to the 18-member commission. POLITICO reported that State Department officials had already informed McDougall that she would be renominated before the White House abruptly nixed the move.
McDougall, who was originally nominated by former president Barack Obama, is widely regarded as an expert on international human rights. She has recently spent much of her time highlighting the ongoing plight of Uighurs and other Muslim populations in western China, where an estimated 1 million or more Muslims are currently held in internment camps and forced to praise the Chinese Communist Party.
McDougall will serve out the remainder of her four-year term, but will be forced to leave the panel this fall.
The commission, formally titled the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, focuses on helping implement anti-racism statutes and policies across the world. Consisting of independent experts from multiple countries, the committee — which meets multiple times per year — also publishes recommendations on reducing racial discrimination.