Ukraine has been elected to the UN Human Rights Council for the 2027–2029 term, receiving support from 162 UN member states in a vote by the UN General Assembly on 13 October, Ukraine’s Permanent Mission to the UN said.

The three-year term gives Ukraine an opportunity to shape international human rights discussions while drawing attention to abuses stemming from Russia’s war. Kyiv says it will work with partners to strengthen accountability mechanisms and protect civilians affected by conflict.

Ukraine’s Permanent Mission to the UN called the result a major diplomatic achievement, saying its team had spent more than a year securing support for the candidacy.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Kyiv would use its membership to push for accountability for Russian human rights violations, support international investigations, and advocate for prisoners of war and civilians unlawfully detained by Russia.

Ukraine will also continue efforts to secure the return of Ukrainian children deported or forcibly transferred by Russia, Sybiha said.

Ukraine to focus on accountability for Russian violations

Ukraine’s election comes as Russia continues its full-scale war against the country, which has brought grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law consistently since 2022.

As a council member, Ukraine plans to work with international partners to strengthen mechanisms for documenting and investigating abuses, protect human dignity, and reinforce international human rights institutions, Sybiha said.

Ukraine has been elected to the UN Human Rights Council for 2027-2029. I thank all UN Member States that supported Ukraine’s candidacy.

Ukraine joins the Council while continuing to defend its people and its sovereignty against Russia’s ongoing aggression, which has brought…

— Andrii Sybiha (@andrii_sybiha) October 13, 2026

Ukraine is returning to the council after previously serving multiple terms, most recently from 2021 to 2023. It was among the council’s founding members when the body was established in 2006.

Russia was suspended from the UN Human Rights Council in April 2022 following reports of gross and systematic human rights violations during its war against Ukraine. Moscow subsequently announced it was withdrawing from the council.

15 countries elected to the council

Alongside Ukraine, the General Assembly elected Brazil, Ghana, the Dominican Republic, Zambia, Ireland, Jordan, Kuwait, Moldova, Nepal, Nigeria, Germany, Uruguay, and Japan to the Human Rights Council.

The 47-member council is the UN’s principal intergovernmental body responsible for promoting and protecting human rights worldwide. Members serve three-year terms.

A side event held during the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva has brought together parliamentarians, journalists and civil-society representatives to discuss terrorism, religious freedom and the European Union’s relationship with Pakistan.

The event, “Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism”, took place at the Palais des Nations on 1st October. Speakers included Greek MP Georgios Manous, EU Today Publisher and Editor Gary Cartwright, Stéphane Michot of Ideal International, with a contribution from Prof K. Warikoo.

Two interventions focused particularly on Pakistan and the implications for European policy.

Victims of terrorism at centre of debate

Gary Cartwright began with the victims rather than trade or institutional policy.

“Terrorism is not an abstract concept,” he told the meeting, describing a bomb exploding in a market, a child killed outside a school and families waiting for someone who will never return.

He acknowledged that Pakistan itself has suffered heavily from terrorist violence. The 2026 Global Terrorism Index ranked Pakistan as the country most affected by terrorism in 2025, recording 1,139 deaths and 1,045 incidents.

At the same time, Gary raised the record of militant organisations operating from Pakistani territory. The UN Security Council describes Lashkar-e-Tayyiba as a Pakistan-based organisation involved in terrorist activity and records its involvement in the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, in which approximately 164 people were killed and hundreds injured. The same UN entry also records links to the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament.

Questions over EU education funding

Gary also questioned the safeguards surrounding European education funding in Pakistan.

In December 2024, Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen asked the European Commission whether EU money intended for education could reach Islamic religious seminaries and what controls were in place over the use of those funds.

In its February 2025 response, the Commission said EU assistance in Sindh and Balochistan was primarily directed through provincial education authorities. It also confirmed that, in selected areas of Balochistan, EU support facilitated formal education for pupils enrolled in religious seminaries through a government-recognised certification programme intended to ease their transition into state education. The Commission said projects were subject to field visits, reporting, monitoring and evaluation.

Gary stressed that he was not arguing that religious education itself constituted extremism. His argument was that European taxpayers should be able to establish where money was going, who administered programmes and what safeguards existed against extremist recruitment.

His intervention then turned to Pakistan’s GSP+ trade status.

Pakistan has benefited from GSP+ since 2014 and is currently the scheme’s largest beneficiary. According to the European Commission’s figures on EU-Pakistan trade, more than 85 per cent of Pakistan’s exports enter the EU duty and quota free. Continued participation requires Pakistan to ratify and effectively implement 27 international conventions covering human and labour rights, environmental protection and good governance.

Gary called for Pakistan’s GSP+ preferences to be suspended pending an assessment of the country’s compliance with its international commitments, counter-terrorism obligations and safeguards surrounding EU-funded programmes.

The issue has been examined previously by EU Today. Its 2025 white paper on Pakistan’s GSP+ compliance argued that the evidential threshold for beginning temporary withdrawal proceedings had been reached, while a Geneva side event in March 2026 considered Pakistan’s human-rights record and the conditionality attached to GSP+ preferences.

Pahalgam attack raised by Greek MP

Greek MP Georgios Manous approached the subject through terrorism, religious freedom and European security.

He referred to the terrorist attack at Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir on 22 April 2025, in which 25 tourists and one local civilian were killed. EU Today previously examined the attack and its victims in its coverage of the Pahalgam massacre.

In December 2025, India’s National Investigation Agency filed a 1,597-page charge sheet naming Lashkar-e-Tayyiba/The Resistance Front and six other accused. The NIA said its investigation alleged that the attack had been planned, facilitated and executed with direction from Pakistan.

Pakistan rejects Indian allegations of responsibility. Islamabad has said India acted without verifiable evidence and maintains that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif offered a transparent and independent investigation into the Pahalgam attack.

Manous also addressed Pakistan’s blasphemy legislation and the position of Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis, linking those questions to the broader problem of religious extremism. Concerns over minority rights and blasphemy laws have also featured in EU Today’s continuing coverage of the debate over Pakistan’s GSP+ eligibility.

The Greek MP then turned to Europe, arguing that extremist ideologies and networks should not be viewed solely as a South Asian security problem.

Pakistan, meanwhile, continues to present itself as both a major victim of terrorism and an international counter-terrorism partner. At the fourth US-Pakistan Counterterrorism Dialogue in Washington in August, the two governments reaffirmed cooperation against ISIS-K, al-Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Balochistan Liberation Army, while discussing border security and the disruption of terrorist facilitation networks.

The Geneva discussion therefore centred on two linked questions for European policymakers: how Pakistan’s counter-terrorism record should be assessed, and how that assessment should interact with the conditions attached to EU trade preferences and European-funded programmes.