On a range of fronts, China and Russia have grown increasingly assertive in their efforts to curtail human rights advocacy, targeting financing for U.N. rights programs, barring human rights defenders from participating in U.N. meetings, and ratcheting up pressure on smaller countries to vote alongside them in the U.N. Security Council. They have tapped into a growing aversion to advocacy from scores of governments that resent what they see as the West’s manipulation of human rights causes to punish political rivals.
