State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Belarus and Cuba were "two of the world's most active perpetrators of serious human rights violations."

McCormack criticized the council's new rules that permitted special scrutiny of Belarus and Cuba to be halted.

The United States, which has previously expressed concerns about the council, is only an observer, not a member, of the body.

Earlier, the current special rapporteur for Belarus, whose post will be abolished under the new rules, said the council's move sent a "wrong and worrying" signal to Minsk.

Adrian Severin, a Romanian law expert, said President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's authoritarian government would react with triumph to this and victims of repressions would lose "a necessary tool" to defend their rights.

The move came at a meeting of the 47-nation council in Geneva on June 18.

Russia is reported to have led demands for the end of the mandate of the monitor for Belarus.

Belarus and Cuba are accused of human rights abuses, particularly of political rights.

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