The United States is withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council in protest at what it sees as an anti-Israel bias, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Tuesday.

"We are withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council, an organization that is not worthy of its name," she said in a joint appearance with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department in Washington.

(Nikki Haley in a U.N. Security Council meeting on Jan. 5, 2018)
[Getty/Kyodo]

The decision came after Washington pulled out from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization last year. It also followed its withdrawals from international deals including the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Iran nuclear accord.

The U.S. withdrawal also reverses the administration of former President Barack Obama's decision to join the council in 2009, made under then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Haley slammed the 47-member Geneva-based council for its "chronic bias against Israel." She also said its membership includes accused human rights abusers such as China, Venezuela and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"I want to make it crystal clear that this step is not a retreat from our human rights commitments. On the contrary. We take this step because our commitment does not allow us to remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organization that makes a mockery of human rights," she said.

For his part, Pompeo said the council "has become an exercise in shameless hypocrisy -- with many of the world's worst human rights abuses going ignored and some of the world's most serious offenders sitting on the council itself."

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein expressed his disappointment at the U.S. pullout.

"Disappointing, if not really surprising, news. Given the state of #HumanRights in today's world, the US should be stepping up, not stepping back," he said in a Twitter post.