(JNS.org) A Canadian legal expert who has expressed anti-Israel views is set to be appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to the post of special rapporteur on human rights issues affecting the Palestinians. He is Michael Lynk, who is currently an associate professor on faculty of law at Western University in London, Ontario. The U.N. appoints a special rapporteur for the purpose of examining alleged Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians. Israel has long blasted the U.N. for anti-Israel bias and has decried the world body’s post of an independent investigator for the Palestinian territories, without the presence of any similar positions for other sensitive global conflict zones. Lynk has made controversial statements about Israel in the past. In a 2013 article, he advocated for bringing Israel before the International Criminal Court. He has also worked in Palestinian refugee camps with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

UN Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog group, criticized Lynk’s nomination and accused him of bias. “The U.N.’s selection of a manifestly partisan candidate — someone who three days after 9/11 blamed the West for provoking the attacks on the World Trade Center — constitutes a travesty of justice and a breach of the world body’s own rules,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.