The international human rights system rests on a simple principle: no victim should be dismissed before the facts are established.
The authority of institutions such as the United Nations depends not on military power or legal coercion, but on the confidence that allegations will be examined independently, regardless of who the victims are, who the perpetrators may be, or what political interests are at stake.
That is why the recent disclosures by UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Alice Edwards deserve careful attention. Speaking at University College London (UCL), in remarks first reported by The Forward, Edwards revealed that she had faced weeks of pressure from fellow UN experts not to submit an official communication documenting allegations of atrocities committed during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
According to her, other rapporteurs were likewise discouraged from signing the document. The UN responded that participation in joint communications is entirely voluntary for independent experts. While that clarifies the formal procedure, it does not answer the central question: whether political pressure was exerted behind the scenes to discourage action.
Days earlier in Geneva, October 7 survivor Ilana Gritzewsky publicly confronted UN Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem, who had questioned whether sufficient evidence existed to establish widespread sexual violence during the Hamas attacks – despite extensive documentation already published by independent organizations.
This caution stands in sharp contrast with other recent developments. In June, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israeli forces had committed acts of sexual violence against Palestinian children. Israel rejected the report, while UN Watch challenged its evidentiary basis.
Yet the contrast is difficult to ignore: extraordinary caution surrounded allegations involving Israeli victims, while allegations against Israel were presented with far greater certainty.
The concerns extend well beyond the UN’s human rights mechanisms. This week, UN Watch published a report alleging that UNESCO continued to list individuals in its Observatory of Killed Journalists who were later identified by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad themselves as members of their armed organizations, without publicly revising those classifications after new information emerged.
Questions about institutional consistency also extend to UNRWA. In 2024, the UN’s own Office of Internal Oversight Services found sufficient evidence to warrant action against employees suspected of involvement in the October 7 attacks. An independent review led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna later identified shortcomings in the agency’s neutrality mechanisms. The episode raised broader questions about the UN’s willingness to confront uncomfortable evidence when its own institutions come under scrutiny.
Taken individually, none of these cases proves institutional bias. Taken together, however, they reveal a troubling pattern: hesitation when confronting allegations involving Israeli victims, reluctance to revisit previous determinations when new evidence emerges, and inconsistent standards across comparable cases.
The legitimacy of international institutions does not derive from their ability to issue reports or resolutions, but from the confidence they inspire. Special rapporteurs, commissions of inquiry, and UN agencies wield influence because they are perceived as independent, rigorous, and impartial. Once that perception begins to erode, it is not merely individual reports that lose credibility. The institutional authority built over decades begins to erode with them.
Alice Edwards’s allegations should neither be accepted uncritically nor dismissed as an isolated controversy. They are serious enough to warrant transparent institutional clarification. The same is true of the questions surrounding UNESCO, UNRWA, and other UN bodies.
Institutions whose authority rests on international trust cannot take that trust for granted. They must continually earn it through consistency, transparency, and a willingness to correct the record whenever new evidence demands it.
The United Nations remains the multilateral institution with the broadest mandate to address these issues. Precisely for that reason, public trust is its most valuable asset. No institution preserves it if perceptions of double standards – or reluctance to revisit its own conclusions – become part of its public identity.
Today, more than any single report or investigation, it is the credibility of the United Nations itself that stands on trial.
The writer is a Brazilian journalist, CEO of Art Presse, and author of A Sisyphean Task (translated from the Brazilian hors commerce title Enxugando Gelo), on media coverage of the war between Israel and terrorist groups.