Presiding over the UN Human Rights Council this year has felt like captaining a ship in the middle of a tsunami, Federico Villegas has told UN News in an interview in New York, with three world-shaping events threatening the very future of the Council itself.

The COVID pandemic, climate change, and the war in Ukraine, have tested the rights system to its limit, but the fact the Council could take action over war in the heart of Europe by an “overwhelming majority”, while the Security Council was gridlocked with Russia using its veto, shows its value.

Council President Villegas, spoke to Jerome Bernard of our UN News French service.