“Do not presume to threaten states with accountability for a tough approach to crushing crime” in which some countries were complicit and others tolerant, he said.

The resolution stops short of setting up a full-fledged commission of inquiry, but calls on the United Nations human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, to prepare a comprehensive report for delivery to the council in a year’s time. That would set the stage for tougher follow-up action if abuses continued unabated, diplomats said.

“It’s a modest resolution, but it is a very critical step to putting the Philippines on the track to accountability, and to show that the killing of thousands of drug war victims has not gone unnoticed by the international community,” said Laila Matar, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s group monitoring the United Nations.

In the run-up to Thursday’s vote, Philippine diplomats lobbied fiercely to dissuade council members from supporting what they considered to be a hostile resolution. They fired off memorandums to diplomatic missions in Geneva challenging the initiative as an abuse of Human Rights Council procedures and a bad use of resources.

“I have never seen a countercampaign of the level of this one by the Philippines,” Ms. Matar said.

In light of that effort, supporters of the resolution considered it something of a victory that so many countries abstained rather than opposed the measure. The vote came just days after one of the drug war’s youngest victims, 3-year-old Myca Ulpina, was killed in a police raid.